Work load

Chicago Journal

Protestors out again over UIC medical center actions

By JACOB WHEELER
Contributing Reporter

Customer service employees at the University of Illinois-Chicago Medical Center picketed their employer last Friday, protesting a management demand that the workers increase the number of patients they register per hour.

In late February, management upped the quota from five to eight to match what UIC considers national productivity standards.

"We're hoping to increase the productivity level because we currently fall below national standards," said Sherri McGinnis Gonzalez, associate director at the UIC Office of Public Affairs. "That's not something we feel is inappropriate."

But Regina Russell, a 47-year-old customer service representative, thinks eight an hour is too high.

"That may be the going rate for the industry, but other [medical registration] people may not do as much work as we do [per patient]," said Russell, who has worked at UIC for 11 years. "We have to call every hospital, every insurance company and make calls for referrals."

Russell and other customer service reps claim that they'll make more mistakes if they try to speed up a sometimes slow and arduous process to complete one patient registration every seven-and-a-half minutes.

"Patients' bills might not get paid correctly because we're in a hurry," she said. "We might write the wrong address or the wrong insurance information, or make the wrong referral. It's not good for the patient to get the bill when they're not supposed to."

Though UIC has officially instituted eight registrations per hour as a "goal," 52-year-old customer service representative Ernest Yates fears there will be repercussions for anyone falling short of the target.

"They say no one will be penalized, but we know that eventually something will happen," said Yates, an eight-year employee at the medical center. "They'll want to sit with you to see why you're not reaching a certain amount, and that creates a pressure situation."

The workers are organized with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73. Joe Iosbaker, a member of the union's executive board, worried that the quota increase will eventually lead to job cuts, though he has no concrete information to support his claims, and UIC hasn't announced any such layoffs.

"As near as we can tell, their impetus for doing this is because they think they can push this and push that, and do the same amount of work with 50 people," down from the 70 currently employed, Iosbaker said. "Just think about it. Seventy people are doing five registrations an hour, or 350 total an hour. If you can get 50 people to do seven registrations an hour, what are you going to do with the other 20? It's not like there will be 30 percent more patients coming here anytime soon.

Iosbaker worried about the health of the customer service employees whose workload has nearly doubled overnight. Many, he claims, already suffer from repetitive motion injuries. And registering a new patient every seven and a half minutes would give them no time to rest their hands. Regina Russell, for one, has already undergone surgery for Carpal Tunnel syndrome, and she may need it again.

About 30 customer service representatives attended last week's rally, held during lunchtime near their building at Damen and Ogden. Other UIC workers driving everything from recycling trucks to police cars occasionally drove circles around the picketing employees and honked in solidarity.

Public Affairs Assistant Director McGinnis Gonzalez said the medical center treats its employees well.

"We pride ourselves on taking our employees very seriously and taking patient care very seriously," says McGinnis Gonzalez, who watched the rally from the sidelines. "We have quality patient care at the forefront of our minds."

The picket was the second time this spring medical center actions inspired a protest. In early March, union members, student and Pilsen residents decried a medical center decision to close a Pilsen clinic that specializes on women and children's health.