CHS buying Washington clinic business
Posted on October 21, 2009 at 11:43 amCommunity Health Systems (Ticker: CYH) has reached an agreement to buy specialty medical provider Rockwood Clinic, The Spokesman-Review reports. Last year, CHS bought nearby Deaconess Medical Center and Spokane Valley Hospital in a $156M deal.
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CHS’ Spokane labor issues worsening
Posted on September 2, 2009 at 3:20 pm
The National Labor Relations Board has filed charged Community Health Systems with negotiating in bad faith in its dealings with Service Employees International Union members in Spokane, Wash. The development comes six months after Franklin-based CHS first ran into trouble with union workers there, tensions that were exacerbated when the company laid off more than two dozen people.
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Union to picket CHS hospitals
Posted on April 6, 2009 at 7:25 pmFrom an e-mail:
Nurses and caregivers at Valley Hospital & Medical Center and Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane today delivered notice of their intention to picket the hospitals. The picket, scheduled for Thursday, April 23, is intended to alert the community that Community Health Systems (CHS) has broken promises it made when it purchased the two hospitals last fall, and is refusing to engage in good faith negotiations with the union.
CHS acquired the two hospitals in 2008, and promised the community it would maintain wages and benefits and revitalize the two struggling hospitals. Union members and the hospitals, owned by Tennessee-based Community Health Systems, have been negotiating a new contract for 6 months.
“CHS came to bargaining with proposals to slash our benefits and reduce our pay,” said Teri Nicholson, RN at Valley Hospital and Medical Center. “After all the promises we had heard, we were just shocked. CHS is a very profitable company. We don’t have much choice but to picket and let our community know what’s happening.”
“Even in this economy, there is a serious shortage of skilled healthcare workers, from nurses to radiology techs. We lose staff all the time to other hospitals and healthcare providers, and that makes it harder to continue our delivery of the highest quality patient care,” said Sharon Kile, radiology/mammography tech at Deaconess. “CHS promised our community that they would address this, but so far instead of working with us to resolve these problems, they’ve been trying to break our union.”
Nurses, techs, and service workers from the two hospitals will participate in informational picketing outside the hospitals during their non-working hours on April 23. More than 40 employees hand delivered the notices to the CEOs of each hospital.
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CHS runs into labor trouble in Spokane
Posted on March 13, 2009 at 1:25 amLess than six months after buying the Empire Health Services system for more than $150 million – and three months after beginning to invest more than $11 million in improvements – it appears Community Health Systems’ honeymoon in Spokane is over and pickets could be on the way.
“Community Health made promises to the employees and to the community that it would boost the hospitals and keep employees with competitive pay and benefits,” Barton said. “Now their message is, ‘You should be happy to have a job.’”
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CHS’ quick start in Spokane
Posted on December 7, 2008 at 10:12 pmCommunity Health Systems (Ticker: CYH) has quickly piled more than $11 million into new equipment for the Washington state health system it bought two months ago.
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