Workers may not lose jobs

Empire Health Services intends to bring its housekeeping, laundry, food services and clinical engineering departments back under hospital management after the company it outsourced the jobs to four years ago announced Friday it was terminating its contract.

The move affects about 245 employees, according to the Washington State Employment Security Department. It also comes at a time when Empire has entered into a letter of intent to sell its two hospitals to Tennessee-based Community Health Systems Inc.

Empire had hired ARAMARK Healthcare in spring 2003 to take over the departments after posting losses and then cutting employee wages 9 percent.

The transition was a rocky one and the workers decided to unionize within months and negotiate a contract with ARAMARK, a company with operations in all 50 states.

The move came as a surprise to employees.

“We were told (by ARAMARK) as of Aug. 28, vacations and everything were no more,” said the employee, who didn’t want to be identified for fear of retribution. “They wouldn’t tell us any more.”

Workers are nervous about their future, but hopeful that they’ll be able to continue at Empire Health Systems, said the employee, who earns nearly $14 an hour.

Empire spokeswoman Becky Swanson said the hospital system is talking with ARAMARK employees and plans to rehire them once ARAMARK’s contract expires Aug. 28.

In a prepared statement, Swanson said: “It is our intent to bring these services in-house and have already begun to talk to key managers and supervisors about staying in their positions as EHS employees. We are now in the process of finalizing plans for the remaining employees and will be communicating with them Tuesday.”

- Staff writer JoNel Aleccia contributed to this story