"Caritas warns of 2 hospital closures; Survival depends on selling chain, firm tells union" by Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | September 24, 2010
Caritas Christi Health Care executives have told union negotiators they will shutter St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton and Carney Hospital in Dorchester if they can’t close a deal for the six-hospital chain to be bought by a New York private equity firm.
The warning was made during contract talks last week with the Massachusetts Nurses Association, according to two people who attended the meeting. The association represents nurses at four Caritas hospitals.
At the Sept. 15 session — which focused on nurses at the flagship St. Elizabeth’s — executives also talked of mounting financial pressures stemming from an increase in the Catholic hospital system’s unfunded pension liability, said the two people at the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the negotiations.
Caritas representatives asked for concessions from the nurses union, including a wage freeze, but no agreement was reached, the two said. The executives also urged more nurses to take an early retirement program introduced last spring.
The meeting, held at nurses union headquarters in Canton, was held as Caritas awaits state government approval of its plan to be purchased by Cerberus Capital Management....
Related: Globe Editorial In Caritas sale, Coakley should learn more about CEO’s terms
Also see: Catholic Caritas Makes Deal With the Devil
The nurses association, along with several other unions that represent Caritas workers, have endorsed the deal with Cerberus....
Sold their souls, did they?
--more--"
Related: Hospitals seek rules for Caritas after sale
Coalition urges further scrutiny of Caritas sale
Labor groups affirm support of Caritas deal
Caritas future remains unclear
Representatives of Caritas Christi Health Care, the private equity firm seeking to buy it, and the attorney general’s office are working on a tentative agreement to protect the retirement plans of 13,000 employees and keep the chain’s hospitals open for at least five years.
With state regulators preparing to rule soon on the proposed sale to Cerberus Capital Management, the parties have been locked in frantic negotiations in recent weeks. The talks intensified after Caritas discovered an additional $45 million shortfall in its unfunded pension liability and critics of the deal pressed for the New York firm to be held to stringent conditions, according to people familiar with the talks.
Those people, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said the buyout plan twice fell apart during the three-way negotiations, but was salvaged....
--more--"
Attorney general backs Caritas sale
Globe Editorial AG’s limits on Caritas deal don’t go far enough
Hospital licenses not apt to hinder sale of Caritas
With new licenses, Caritas will ask SJC to approve sale
Catholic officials sign off on Caritas Christi sale
Did they sign in blood?
"Cerberus has history of tough decisions; With union backing in place, Caritas deal faces judicial review" by Beth Healy, Globe Staff | October 21, 2010
Over the past decade, it has shut down a Houston mortgage company and fired nearly 800 employees, after first canceling their health insurance. It took a bottling company public without disclosing that it had just lost a major client, then let go hundreds of workers. And it shuttered a Wisconsin paper mill three years after entering the paper business.
Cerberus Capital Management has made the kind of tough business decisions typical of buyout firms trying to turn around money-losing companies. But despite that track record, the New York private equity company has convinced Massachusetts regulators and thousands of doctors, nurses, and union employees that it should be allowed to buy Caritas Christi Health Care, saying its ownership offers the best hope for the struggling chain of six Catholic hospitals. Indeed, Caritas officials have said the sale is necessary to keep the hospitals operating....
Look at the future of your health care and who will be in charge of your hospitals.
Will the hound from hell have a statue guarding the entrance to the hospital?
There has been little opposition to turning the nonprofit organization, once run by the Archdiocese of Boston, into a for-profit venture.
But you couldn't have a good, decent single-payer national plan.
Investment houses and equity firms need to profit first!
At least SOMEONE will be HEALTHY, right?
Enough to make you sick, isn't it?
But the unwavering support of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 35,000 health care workers in the state and 3,000 at Caritas, stands out.
Related: Executive Payday: Raytheon Rewarded by Labor
Look where your public servants tax dollars are going!
Yeah, I'm kind of down on AmeriKa's organized labor these days.
Where have all the principle$ gone?
“With the necessary protections and assurances in place, our members feel this specific investment in the Caritas system makes sense and will improve job security for workers and care delivery for patients,’’ said Veronica Turner, executive vice president of SEIU’s Local 1199.
Traditionally, the powerful union has not looked kindly on the management practices of investment firms. SEIU devotes a number of websites, including www.BehindTheBuyouts.org, to attacking buyout groups such as Bain Capital, the Carlyle Group, and Lazard. For instance, when Bain two years ago acquired Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a national day care provider, the union led protest rallies in four cities.
But almost as soon as the Caritas deal was made public in March, the union embraced Cerberus, known for acquiring troubled companies and whose recent history includes bad bets on the mortgage industry and Chrysler Corp. Union officials say there are a number of reasons they view this deal differently, chiefly because Cerberus pledged to protect jobs for at least three years, and to fully fund pensions.
They also cite that local management, led by Caritas chief executive Ralph de la Torre, will remain in place.
Most importantly, Coakley’s report said all six hospitals must remain open and their 12,000 jobs be preserved for three years. After that, the hospitals would be safe for two more years — if they meet certain performance targets.
Spokesmen for Caritas and Cerberus declined to comment for this story....
History shows that Cerberus has sometimes taken drastic actions at companies it has bought.
Aegis Mortgage Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in 2007 amid the mortgage crisis, resulting in the firing of hundreds of employees. Before ceasing operations, Cerberus canceled the Houston company’s health plan, so that it would not have to pay for health coverage for laid-off workers....
Sounds like something the devil would do.
SEIU is convinced nothing like that will happen here.
Why?
At minimum, the union is willing to settle for three years of better financial footing, plus the safety of pensions, which Caritas has said were dangerously underfunded.
Under terms of the deal, Cerberus will assume $260 million in pension liabilities for 13,000 current and retired Caritas employees. That’s in addition to assuming about $235 million in debt for the hospital chain. Cerberus also has said it will spend $400 million on capital improvements at the hospitals over the next four years, rebuilding emergency rooms and operating rooms, and making other overdue renovations....
Yeah, they are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, yup!
SIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
--more--"
Related: Caritas says it will continue to fund workers’ pensions
Good night, nurse!
"Caritas nurses OK 5-year pact" by Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | October 29, 2010
Members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association at four Caritas Christi Health Care hospitals, including St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton and Carney Hospital in Dorchester, yesterday ratified a five-year contract that gives nearly 1,700 registered nurses pay raises and a new retirement plan.
The votes at St. Elizabeth’s, Carney, Norwood Hospital, and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton capped months of often tense bargaining with executives of Boston-based Caritas. The financially stressed Catholic hospital system is awaiting approval by Francis X. Spina, associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, of its deal to be bought by a New York private equity firm.
At a low point in the talks last month, Caritas negotiators warned that they would have to freeze wages and shutter St. Elizabeth’s and Carney if they could not complete their deal to be purchased by Cerberus Capital Management. But after Cerberus agreed to fund a deeper pension shortfall and the deal won approvals from state regulators, the parties were able to agree on the terms of the pact ratified yesterday.
The contract gives the six-hospital chain labor peace for five years as it converts to an investor-owned health care business under the Cerberus umbrella.
So whose health will they be looking after?
And it gives nurses a so-called “defined benefit’’ pension plan they call the first of its kind for registered nurses in Massachusetts. The retirement plan is being created at a time when many employers across the country, including major corporations, are eliminating pensions....
Caritas and the Canton-based nurses union will jointly set up and administer the defined-benefit pension plan for nurses at the four hospitals. Such a plan, which will initially be funded by a new Caritas holding company, Steward Health Care System LLC, and will be guaranteed by the federal government, is a rarity in the nursing profession....
Why are U.S. TAXPAYERS on the HOOK for THAT?
Taxpayers BACKING UP Cerberus, huh?
UNREAL!
Caritas nurses considered the defined benefit plan the “holy grail’’ of the issues they negotiated during the collective bargaining.
“Hallelujah,’’ said Joan Ballantyne, who cochairs the nurses union bargaining unit at Norwood Hospital....
Nurses at the Caritas hospitals currently have 403(b) defined contribution retirement plans designed for employees of nonprofits or government agencies. Such plans, similar to 401(k)s in the private sector, allow them to make contributions toward retirement.
Many in the Caritas system also still have pensions set aside in a trust managed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, the former Caritas owner, which froze pensions at the end of 2003. While no new contributions will be made, Cerberus has agreed to fully fund those pensions for about 13,000 Caritas employees and retirees.
Caritas management considers the defined benefit pension plan a recruiting tool as the system seeks to hire new nurses and improve how it provides medical care, said Richard Kropp, Caritas senior vice president of human resources.
“As you look out over the next 10 to 15 years, this will give our nurses predictable retirement income,’’ Kropp said. He said the overall five-year contract provides stability for Caritas as it undergoes the transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit businesses....
That's the first health check they will make.
--more--"
Also see: The Massachusetts Model: Devil Defends Catholic Health Care
Catholic Caritas Didn't Read Devil's Fine Print
Does the Devil Have a Deal For You!
Boston Globe Gives the Devil His Due
Time to put mercifully put Caritas out of its misery.
Autopsy update: For Caritas and its rivals, now comes the hard part
