Report Documents Skewed Pay at Resurrection

by James Parks, Aug 6, 2007

Resurrection Health Care workers and religious leaders marched outside the Catholic Hospital Association’s annual meeting in June.

Executives of Resurrection Health Care (RHC) hospitals pay themselves lavish salaries while patient-support staff earn low wages that mire them in poverty and leave them unable to support their families, according to a new report released today.

The report, Coming Up Short: Resurrection Health Care’s Distorted Pay Priorities, by AFSCME Council 31, says RHC, the second largest non-profit hospital system in the Chicago metropolitan area, skews its pay structure so the compensation of RHC hospital executives significantly exceeds national norms while the meager wages of patient-support staff (housekeepers, laundry and food service workers) fall far short of self-sufficiency standards in the Chicago area. Click here to read the report.

Seeking to improve their working conditions and enhance the quality of patient care, Resurrection employees are working to form a union with AFSCME Council 31.
“The low wages paid to these Resurrection workers are shameful, particularly when contrasted with the lavish salaries the company’s top executives pay themselves,” said Roberta Lynch, deputy director of AFSCME Council 31.

These are the workers who mop the floors, change the bedpans and launder the sheets and Resurrection would simply grind to a halt without them. Yet some of these workers cannot even afford medical care at the very hospital at which they work.

Araceli Romero, who has worked more than 10 years in the laundry at Resurrection Medical Center, is one of those workers. She told a press conference today in Chicago:

After more than 10 years working in the laundry…I earn only $9.60 per hour. Work in the laundry is very difficult. We stand all day untangling wet, heavy linens and throwing them into large bins. Many of my co-workers have had serious injuries to their shoulders, backs and wrists.

While Resurrection brings in billions in revenue, many patient-support employees can’t make ends meet and we have to make horrible choices. I have one co-worker who had cancer, and sometimes she skips doctor checkups because she can’t afford the co-pays.

The report follows an employee petition drive pressing for wage increases for patient-support staff. The National Labor Relations Board Regional Office recently indicated it has found merit in a charge that Resurrection allegedly violated federal labor laws by interrogating an employee who was circulating the petition and interfering with her rights.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson told the press conference the “best way to ensure fair pay is for Resurrection employees to be able to form their union.”

It’s time for Resurrection management to honor the people whose hard work allows the hospitals to operate, and respect the workers’ rights to organize a union.

According to the report:

• Resurrection’s lowest-paid employees earn only $9 an hour, well below the federal poverty line for a family of four. Resurrection also caps wages for its patient-support staff with a “maximum rate” that prevents even loyal, long-term employees from reaching an income level that would allow a family to achieve economic self-sufficiency.
• The employee premium contribution for Resurrection’s family health care coverage averages more than $230 per month, more than one-sixth the monthly take home pay of low-wage Resurrection workers.
• In 2006, Resurrection Health Care CEO Joseph Toomey’s total compensation was more than $1 million. Toomey took in more in just three hours than RHC’s lowest-paid employees takes home in an entire month.
• Compensation for the top executive at each Resurrection hospital exceeded national medians for similar-sized hospitals in 2006 by 14 percent to 94 percent.
• RHC’s top tier of management (90 individuals) earned a combined total of more than $26 million last year. If this amount were reduced by just 5 percent, all patient-support staff could be paid an additional $105 per month.

“These low wages are an embarrassment for a Catholic institution,” says Rev. Larry Dowling, pastor of St. Agatha Church in Chicago.

Catholic Social Teaching is very clear about the need for employers to pay a living wage and to respect workers’ rights to organize a union. As one of the largest Catholic employers in Chicago, Resurrection needs to lead by example.

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