Mayo Clinic decision strikes nerve with workers, community

[Omaha Steve]

An ad in Wednesday's Rochester Post-Bulletin (a portion of which is shown here) profiles Mayo Clinic workers with years of experience.

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/articles/mayo-clinic-decision-strikes-nerve-workers-community

By Barb Kucera, Workday Minnesota
July 28, 2016

ROCHESTER
One of Minnesota’s best-known companies and major employers – Mayo Clinic – is facing criticism for its plan to subcontract food service operations to an Atlanta-based conglomerate. Workers and community members have signed petitions objecting to the move at the same time that Mayo seeks millions in public dollars to support its “destination medical center.”

Mayo’s announcement one month ago that it planned to contract with Morrison Healthcare caught employees by surprise, the workers said. Some 600 employees across Minnesota will be affected, including about 350 in Rochester and others in Austin, Albert Lea, Mankato and Fairmont, according to their union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota (link is external).

Many of the workers have decades of experience in their jobs. On Wednesday, the union took out an ad in the Rochester Post-Bulletin (link is external), highlighting six of the workers with tenures ranging from 36 to 43 years.

“If Mayo outsources dietary jobs, will the next generation making food for Mayo patients and staff be able to reach 40 years of service to the Rochester community?” they ask. The advertisement is the third placed by the union in recent weeks.

FULL story at link.


Rochester workers hold up a full-page ad in the Post Bulletin calling on Mayo Clinic to stop outsourcing good paying jobs. Photo courtesy SEIU Healthcare Minnesota via Facebook

[Egnever]

1. While I get their disappointment

The idea it takes 40 years of experience to cook food is complete nonsense.

Walk into any restaurant you would be hard pressed to find a cook that was there for more than 5 years.

[Omaha Steve]

2. It refers to getting a retirement

The reward for long faithful service to the employer AND the community it serves. Contractors come and go and don't offer benefits like a retirement system.

The doctors at the Mayo are on salary. They don't have a quota. They can spend all day on one patient. Great system. Wanting to shaft long time workers while seeking public funds should result in a big hell no!

OS

[Nay]

6. Are you for real? No one said it takes 40 years to learn to cook. We're talking about

encouraging long-term employment (complete with raises and pensions and healthcare) for workers who do just the sort of work you deem brainless and ordinary. That's what unions are for, and what our whole country should be aiming for -- there are all sorts of jobs that are very necessary but don't take a PhD. Let's encourage long-term employment so these people have something to live on and something to retire on, rather than treating them like disposable and interchangeable cogs.

And it's admirable that the workers are standing up against the change to contractors even though they themselves will come out OK with their money and benefits intact. Don't you see they are fighting for their fellow employees who have not worked there that long? They are looking out for others, not just themselves. That's a rare commodity these days.

[kcr]

7. Well, I don't think that's their argument, so n/t

[SickOfTheOnePct]

3. It says that all of the current workers

will be offered jobs with the contractor, at current salary.

I'm not seeing how that is taking away good paying jobs.

[alarimer]

5. Probably they are losing something else.

It's not just about salary, you know. It might be that they, as contractors, will no longer be unionized or have collective bargaining.
Or they might lose their pensions/retirement if they have them currently.

Contracting out employees is a cost-saving measure that usually gives employees the shaft in some way. You can believe this is true here as well.

[Cairycat]

4. I've worked for Morrison and it was not good

Current dietary staff will be kept at their current rate of pay, but get stiffed on raises later on. Or have low level workers understaffed and overworked while more layers of management are added. And/or have management not deal with staffing problems or deal poorly with them.

Good that they have SEIU representation, that's the only way to deal with the abuses of companies like Morrison.