Report Finds that Ascension Health Has Strayed from its Mission

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Fr. Dick Preston

Father Dick Preston is the priest who married Michael Moore and his wife and is featured in 'Capitalism: A Love Story.'

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July 26th, 2010 9:04 PM

Report Finds that Ascension Health Has Strayed from its Mission

Greetings in solidarity with all God's creatures, especially the meek, hungry, imprisoned and workers everywhere. Since my last posting, events have intensified in Flint, MI, during contract negotiations at the Catholic-owned Genesys Regional Medical Center (part of the corporate giant Ascension Health).

Although the union that represents 300 licensed nurses, technicians, EMTs and paramedics had offered a counter-proposal to the hospital’s plans to gut retirement pay by 75%, the hospital administration refused to look at it. Hospital management has walked away from the bargaining table and plans to implement its own contract that it termed “last, best and final” on August 29. One can be sure that management, with the support of the nuns, has replacement workers (scabs) at the ready. As the good Sisters who own Genesys are aware, this action of using replacement workers is contrary to Catholic Social Teachings.

Not long before the hospital refused to continue bargaining, the national organization Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) had sent a fact-finding delegation to several Ascension hospitals in Michigan. IWJ is a national organization that works with religious leaders on worker and workplace justice issues. Based on interviews with numerous Ascension employees (management refused to be interviewed), IWJ has released a report (available for download here). The report’s conclusions are troubling and should be of concern to the religious congregations of women who own Ascension.

The report describes the deterioration of previously-established collective bargaining relationships, abuses of workers’ legal rights to organize and participate in union activities, as well as the loss of employee morale due to deceitful management tactics. IWJ concludes that Ascension is in need of an annual audit of workers’ rights at its hospitals nationwide, and that it must follow the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ own publication, “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions.”

Interfaith Worker Justice also concludes that Ascension Health and its subsidiary, Genesys, have drifted far from their faith, their mission, and Catholic teaching. Sad indeed. Stay tuned.

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