Good day all. One of the problems now facing the medical system is a shortage of doctors and nurses. There are a number of reasons for this. One of the big ones is the medical personnel refusing to take the Covid vaccines and getting fired.
Another reason is the time honored pay and working conditions. Recently, a large group of people who worked for the ThedaCare facility handed in their notices. The reason was simple. Another place offered them a much better deal. It seems that ThedaCare, rather then provide a counteroffer simply decided that these people were their property and wouldn’t be allowed to leave. Here are the details from Wisconsin Public Radio:
A hospital in northeastern Wisconsin has lost a court battle to keep health care staff who want to work elsewhere.
On Monday, Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis held a hearing on a case that involves staff who were part of ThedaCare’s radiology and cardiovascular team, deciding the employer can’t force workers who had resigned to stay until replacements were hired.
I find this interesting that it even ended up in court in the first place. Why is this even a question? You can’t force people to work someplace they don’t want to, and it’s a really bad idea to use coercion and think you’re going to get quality work out of them.
The civil court case between ThedaCare and Ascension Wisconsin comes at a time when health professionals are in great demand across the U.S.
Hmm, sounds like the other medical center was willing to pay the rates the now former employees of of ThedaCare wanted. It’s also not like the people involved walked into HR and simply announced, “Effective immediately, I quit!” They gave their notice. (The standard is 2 weeks, however it seems that these people gave them more than that)
Attorneys for Ascension argued in court Monday that ThedaCare had known for weeks the employees were resigning and should have prepared for that instead of responding with a “frantic, last-minute lawsuit.”
Just days before, seven former employees of ThedaCare were to start new jobs at Ascension’s St. Elizabeth Hospital in Appleton. Judge McGinnis had temporarily blocked the move until a court hearing could be held and ThedaCare could find replacement staff at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center in Neenah.
I have serious questions regarding this initial decision by the Judge. This isn’t a contract issue. These were “At Will” employees. This means that they could be fired for any legal reason, and also can quit if they so choose. They chose to do so and provided plenty of lead time to the ThedaCare administrators to start looking for replacements. That they don’t appear to have done so speaks volumes regarding their competence.
In arguing for the temporary injunction, lawyers for ThedaCare said the facility “will not have adequate staffing to treat trauma and stroke victims — some of whom will die as a result of the lack of timely care.”
Well, in that case, they could go to the other medical center which is just a few miles down the road. Problem solved from the patience perspective. In any case, there is the possibility that Ascension might have “Poached” the people from ThedaCare. That could, theoretically, be used to stop the workers from leaving. (That would be a very questionable issue. No compete clauses can and do get squelched by the courts as unfair to the people looking to move on)
Ascension said in a statement they did not initiate the ThedaCare employees, but rather the seven people had applied to open job postings
“It is Ascension Wisconsin’s understanding that ThedaCare had an opportunity but declined to make competitive counter offers to retain its former employees,” a spokesperson for Ascension wrote in an email.
Now that is interesting. I would love to have been a fly on the wall listening to the conversations on how to replace or keep the workers who had handed in their notices. From my reading, it doesn’t look like trying to retain their people by properly compensating them even crossed their minds.
A former ThedaCare employee, Timothy Breister, told the court that “one member of our team received an outstanding offer not just in pay but also a better work/life balance which in turn caused the rest of us to apply” and that no matching offers were made. The seven resigned from their positions shortly thereafter on Dec. 29, Breister said.
I’ve worked for companies in the past that, bluntly, did not consider their people to be an asset, and in one instance, considered them to be expendable and easily replaceable. That worked out very well for that company. They lost so many highly experienced people from all aspects of the company that they nearly collapsed, and their stock price did, in fact collapse.
I can’t comment on the internal aspects of ThedaCare and it’s employee relations since I don’t work there. However, they were trying to force them to continue working at a position they wanted to leave, and, I’m assuming this of course, with no increase in pay or benefits. Since, as mentioned earlier, these were “At Will” workers and not under any sort of contract, this smacks of serfdom. I do believe we had both a revolution and a civil war to put an end to this sort of thing. It took the court far longer than it should have to remember all this, but the correct answer was reached.
Thatisall
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