Technical workers reject Sacred Heart offer

About 450 technical workers at Sacred Heart Medical Center rejected a contract offer Tuesday night from the hospital, saying it didn’t provide enough protection against changes in their health insurance plans, among other things.

Ninety-six percent of the members of Local 21 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union voted against the contract, said union representative Bob Barker. The union bargaining team had recommended that members reject the offer, he said.

David Fleishman, director of negotiations for the union, said “there were a lot of good things in the offer,” but three issues prompted the “no” vote: uncertainty over health insurance coverage, pay increases for longtime employees and the practice of sending employees home if there’s not enough work for them on a particular day.

The union wanted language in the contract that would prevent Sacred Heart management from changing employees’ health insurance plans without going back to the bargaining table, Fleishman said.

Patrick Clarry, Sacred Heart’s vice president of human resources, said the hospital hasn’t proposed any change to the current health insurance coverage. The language the union was seeking in the contract, however, would have been “very limiting in our ability to monitor expenses around our health care plan,” he said.

The contract offer called for pay raises of 3 percent in the first year, and 2.5 percent the second and third years.

Negotiations will resume next month with the aid of a federal mediator.