news
Exposed, But Not Protected
UNION SAYS ESSENTIAL WORKERS AT LOCAL HOSPITALS ARE NOT RECEIVING COVID-19 BENEFITS
By Taylor Perse
W
hen Aaron Green, a nursing as-
sistant at McKenzie-Willamette
Medical Center, got sick with
what he believed was COVID-19
while working with infected pa-
tients, he expected his employer
to provide the basics: getting him
tested, paying him sick leave to stay home and coverage
for any treatment.
But he says he didn’t get any of those benefits and
instead was told to isolate in his home, was forced to go
into negative paid-time-off and even collect a week of
unemployment.
Local hospitals are not providing the basic benefits
for their essential workers, according to SEIU Local 49
union’s demands and its evaluation of these hospitals.
Both McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center and Peace-
Health Sacred Heart Medical Centers received failing
scores on the union’s evaluations.
The health care branch of SEIU Local 49 covers hos-
pitals throughout Oregon and southwest Washington,
representing workers who are not nurses but are still
working on the front lines such as housekeepers, cafeteria
workers, check-in staff, certified nursing assistants (CNA)
such as Green and emergency department technicians.
Many of these essential workers face the risk of being
exposed to patients with COVID-19.
After initially agreeing to comment, McKenzie-
Willamette Medical Center did not respond to Eugene
Weekly’s questions, but instead issued a statement:
“We offer benefits to our employees as mutually agreed
upon through our union contracts,” spokesperson Jana
Waterman writes in an email.
In an email, local PeaceHealth communication spe-
cialist Anne Williams said on behalf of the hospital that
it has not seen the scorecard, and gave a list of benefits
for caregivers, which incorporates everyone employed
by PeaceHealth. These benefits include 100 percent
coverage of testing, free child care, temporary paid sick
time for all full-time and part-time caregivers, full pay
protection and more.
SEIU argues that during a pandemic, that isn’t enough.
“Eugene hospitals are definitely failing to meet worker
needs,” Mike Morris, assistant director for the SEIU health
care division, says. He says the union has called on these
hospitals to keep workers and the community safe.
Morris says that SEIU submitted a series of formal
demands based on what workers explained they needed.
As the pandemic wore on, the union scored the hospitals
on whether they provided coverage for COVID-19 testing,
giving workers hazard pay, child care assistance, a
moratorium on involuntary cut hours and paid leave for
any virus related absences. According to the scorecard,
they haven’t.
When elective surgeries closed down at McKenzie-
Willamette, Green says he volunteered to work in the
COVID-19 triage tent so that he could still work and
get paid.
Nine days after coming in contact with a positive
COVID-19 patient, Green began to develop symptoms.
He contacted the hospital about being tested, but was
referred to his primary care physician, who couldn’t test
him due to limited tests at the time.
Green says he was told to isolate for 14 days, and he
worried about how to pay his bills. He says his wife works
at PeaceHealth, and even on a joint income there are times
when they live month-to-month.
“McKenzie wasn’t offering paid time off to the ex-
posed,” Green says. “I had to use 40 hours of my own
paid time off.” Because of a recent surgery, Green didn’t
HAPPENING PEOPLE
have enough PTO left, and alleges the hospital told him
he had to use up to 40 hours of “negative PTO,” which
means he owes the hospital hours. Then he had to take a
week of unemployment.
He didn’t feel better for several weeks and never knew
if his sickness was the coronavirus.
“A lot of hospital workers live paycheck to paycheck.
It's not easy,” Green says. He adds that many essential
workers have kids at home and are possibly bringing the
virus back to them.
McKenzie-Willamette decided to reopen for non-
emergency procedures on May 1, in line with Gov. Kate
Brown’s ordinance.
“They decided to test all the patients having surgery.
I asked them, ‘Shouldn’t we be testing surgical staff first
because we could be asymptomatic?’” Green asks. He
says the hospital responded that it would be difficult
logistically, but they could look into it.
In addition to being exposed and not tested, Green
says essential workers still only wear one mask a day,
even if they are going into multiple procedure rooms or
from isolation to other patients.
“It doesn’t seem right that we will be doing more
surgeries if we can’t change masks.”
When re-evaluated the week of May 11, SEIU has
changed McKenzie-Willamette’s rating from an F to a
D-, because it now provides full coverage of COVID-19
treatment and testing for workers and their families. But
according to the evaluation, workers are still not receiving
hazard pay and other workers are furloughed — making
more from unemployment than they would at their jobs.
“We shouldn’t be making more money when we are not
working than when we are working,” Green says. “That’s
not why I got into health care, but to help people. We
should be paid a living affordable wage.” ■
by Paul Neevel
Dave Owens
In observance of National Social Work Month in March, the
Oregon Department of Human Services named Dave Owens
of Eugene winner of the 2019 Tom Moan Memorial Award,
recognizing achievement by a child welfare caseworker. "We
are proud of Dave’s work strengthening Lane County’s children
and families," says Child Welfare Director Rebecca Jones
Gaston. "He is thoughtful and humble, and those he works
with know he is not there to judge but to help."
Born in Lynwood, California, Owens moved with his family to
Port Orford, on the southern Oregon coast, at age 4. “Moving
to Oregon is my earliest memory,” says Owens, who graduated
from Pacific High School in the Port Orford-Langlois School
District. He came to Eugene to study at Northwest Christian
College, where he majored in youth ministry and minored in
music performance. He met his wife, Tina, in the school's
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
traveling promotional music group, Pilgrimage. “We were
gone Friday to Sunday every weekend,” he relates, “visiting
a church in Washington, Oregon, California or Idaho.” Owens
worked as a youth minister for a year after graduation, then
took a job with another church, working in day treatment
with troubled kids in Lane County residential and juvenile
corrections facilities for three years. Afterward, he and Tina
moved to Los Angeles, where he taught high school for six
years in the San Pedro Narbonne Community Adult School.
“But we didn't want to raise kids in L.A.,” he says, so they
moved back to Oregon with their two young sons in 1999, and
he began work with Oregon Child Welfare. “It will be 21 years
in July. I work with residential and hard-to-place youth. The
child contact, dealing with children, treating them special, has
kept me going. My goal is to help families get back together.”
M A Y
2 1 ,
2 0 2 0
7