Know Respect

By now, everyone is aware of the Union’s strong objection to the Retreat’s CEO, Rob Simpson, giving $100 more in bonus money to non-union staff and restoring earned time to non-union staff months before union staff after telling our negotiating team he could not afford a penny more. In our view, this issue is far greater than a simple disagreement over a contract issue. The disagreement gets to the foundation of how our CEO views our work and our important contributions.
Good relationships, whether they be labor relationships, patient/staff relationships, supervisor/staff relationships or any other positive relationships are founded on mutual respect and honesty. In the past and currently, our Union has very good working relationships with many in supervisory and managerial positions. We are proud of those relationships and we believe that everyone, staff, patients and mangers have benefited from them. The underpinning of those positive and productive relationships has been honesty and mutual respect. Certainly we have had many disagreements and we will continue to have them. What has held us together is an ongoing honesty in working with one another and mutual respect.
So it continues to alarm us that respect and honesty is missing from the front office, the office of the Retreat’s CEO. It is not honest to tell the Union negotiating team, representing all of you, that there is not a penny more and then give more to others. It is not respectful to, for the first time in anyone’s memory, reward one set of employees more than another simply on Union status. We want to be very clear on this point. We support the idea that everyone be treated fairly and that everyone be rewarded for their contributions to the Retreat, union and non-union alike. But it is very disrespectful and unfair to pay front line staff less than supervisors, administrators and other non-union staff.
In this coming year, we are committed to fighting for all members to assure that we are all dealt with both individually and as a Union with the respect and dignity we have all earned and deserve.