239 workers will walk off the job Nov. 1 unless a new labor deal
is hammered out
Morgan Hill – Two-hundred-thirty-nine union workers for Santa Clara County’s largest mental-health nonprofit, Alliance for Community Care, are prepared to strike Nov. 1 unless management offers a “livable” wage increase and cheaper health care for dependent family members.
“My daughter is on Medi-Cal, because there’s no way on my salary I can pay for her health care,” said Patricia Huerta, an operations assistant at the Alliance who earns about $25,000 a year, and is chief steward for Service Employees International Union Local 715.
A strike would curtail programs for some 3,600 elderly, youth and homeless clients, employees say, including 70 patients who live in Gilroy and Morgan Hill.
Negotiating teams for the union and the weighty nonprofit – revenues last year topped $23 million, with two-thirds of that money coming from mental-health contracts with the county – have been meeting, at least, twice a week since Sept. 13. The current labor contract expires Oct. 31.
“I’m certainly hopeful” an agreement can be reached, said Richard Jennings, human resources director for the Alliance. “Both sides have been negotiating very diligently … coming back and forth with good proposals.”
Still, some union members are criticizing the Alliance, which operates three main outpatient sites located in San Jose and Palo Alto, of becoming a “Wal-Mart of mental health providers,” forcing its lowest-paid workers relying on welfare services to make ends meet.
“All I know is we can’t live on ‘poverty’ levels,” said administrative assistant Pat Talitonu, alluding to the Bay Area’s high cost of living. “Some of the workers’ children here are on Healthy Families (a low-cost health care program for uninsured children who do not qualify for no-cost Medi-Cal) because they can’t afford health care.”
But managers say they are doing their best to give appropriate wages and benefits while the county anticipates a deficit of $504.1 million over the next four budget cycles – with health and hospital services projected to lose $109.8 million in funds.
A wage increase of 3.75 percent is currently on the table, along with a $10 reduction in monthly health care premiums for family members. Union workers pay about $300 per month for dependent’s medical coverage. Starting salaries vary on position, with administrative assistants earning $33,353, maintenance workers getting $28,901 and licensed clinicians pulling $47,443.
“We’d love to give as much of an increase as we can, but we are facing huge calls for budget cuts from the county, and we are trying to tighten up and remain as fiscally strong as we can be,” Jennings said, adding the Alliance is competitive compared to other mental-health nonprofit groups in the state, according to a 2006 survey by the California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies.
Established in 1997 when three long-standing nonprofit agencies merged – San Jose’s Avenues to Mental Health and Community Companions, and Palo Alto’s Miramonte Mental Health Services – the Alliance provides various mental-health services to the elderly, youth and homeless, many referred by hospital psychiatric wards. It also operates residential facilities and job-training programs. The agency employs about 100 clinical service specialists who earn starting salaries of $35,503.
CEO Vonza Thompson earns $145,000, and hasn’t taken a pay raise since she was hired in 2002, Jennings said.
Francisco Floras, who screens patients for clinical service specialists, said he’s seen caseloads increase as budgets have tightened.
“It’s definitely increased,” Floras said. “Typical caseloads used to be 35 about six years ago. Now its easily 45, 50, 55. Case managers have been leaving, and they’re getting harder to replace. People have been doing more crisis services instead of doing preventative services, because they haven’t been able to meet the clients on a regular basis.”
Tony Burchyns covers Morgan Hill for The Times. Reach him at (408) 779-4106 ext. 201 or tb*******@*************es.com.
