EAST LIVERPOOL — The outcome of Thursday’s meeting between East Liverpool City Hospital and SEIU District 1199, the union for hospital employees, was a ratified contract, which means employees avoid a potential strike.

Chrissy Lewis SEIU, District 1199 union representative for hospital employees, said on Tuesday that the Thursday meeting was going to be the third and final offer. It would either be accepted, or employees may begin talking strike if rejected.  

Lewis said after the meeting on Thursday that by a very slim margin an agreement was reached and there is a contract, which is a good thing. 

While Lewis said she could not say how many voted for and how many against, she could say it was a very good turn out and an extremely close vote.  

Lewis noted on Tuesday that she was prepared to talk to the employees about a possible strike if an agreement wasn’t reached on Thursday. 

“We are not completely happy with everything, but happy enough that we accepted the deal,” Lewis said. “I think what this was, was the last, best and final offer for management and I don’t think any of the members were completely satisfied with the deal, but not knowing if there was going to be more to be able to be had played a big part in their decision.”  

 Lewis noted that SEIU District 1199 does not represent the nurses, but they do represent much of the hospital staff — approximately 150 employees which include the LPNs, nurse’s aide, cleaners, respiratory, maintenance, surgery techs, pharmacy techs, dietary, cafeteria employees, unit secretaries, distribution techs, material processors, medical imaging and transporters.  

 The employees’ contract expired on Jan. 9, and they have been working without a contract since.  

 Contract negations began in December, and three meetings were held in January to reach a resolution. 

 Lewis noted that getting the contract was a long tedious process, but they do have a contract now. 

 Employees’ issues with the contract involved wages and wanted to be treated with respect. 

 “The campaign was about respect on the job,” Lewis said.  “Members are wanting the basic rights like the right to have a union delegate with them when they go to talk to their supervisor.” 

 She noted there was a lack of respect in the way some of the management talked to the employees. She also said it wasn’t all management, but some. 

 Lewis also said the wages were low, but they conducted a market analysis and adjusted the wages at where they felt the market intended it to be set.  

 She also noted that was one of the biggest issues the employees had and that they wanted the increase to be across the board for everyone to be fair, but instead they proposed increases for some titles over others and in a lot of cases newer higher were getting larger increases then employees who had been there for a long time.  

“It was a tough situation,” Lewis said.  

 Attempts to reach a hospital spokesperson Thursday night were unsuccessful.