So basically, ThedaCare feels these employees are so important that people will die without them, but not important enough to pay them what they’re worth.
That was a very interesting read. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m getting a whiff of fraud.
It relates to the part where ThedaCare “refused to accept” the resignations of some of the employees and kept them in the records as On-Call employees after their resignation date. Why? Especially as it’s not clear that they even had a way to contact them with work, because they locked them out of their accounts.
Could they have done this so their staffing levels didn’t drop below some metric that was required for them to keep their Level 2 Trauma Center certification?
But they obviously couldn’t keep up this deception once their employees actually started working elsewhere.
This would explain the relief they sought. They either wanted Ascension to delay the on-boarding (which meant they probably would’ve kept up the deception that the employees that quit were still available to them ), or they wanted to have Ascension make some of its technicians available to them……which would’ve increased their theoretical staffing levels.
I hope that the judges ruling is released it its entirety soon, and I hope it’s harsh.
And I hope the accrediting authorities look into possible fraud.
Yes, i don’t think they even claimed “people will die”, just, “we will lose our trauma accreditation.”
This was all about money, and i, also, wonder if there was some fraud.
Some interviews with employees
Brian
I don’t see any interviews at that link?
Right, don’t expect the lapdogs of capital to admit it was bullshit to argue “OMG patients are going to die if workers take jobs that pay them fairly.” It was a transparently false attempt to use patients as human shields.
After years of watching this board defend employers who treat at-will workers like garbage, it’s somewhat shocking to see those same people suggest that the at-will relationship needn’t always operate in the other direction. The hypocrisy isn’t surprising of course, but it will never not be shocking.
“Nobody cared about how magical what we do here was until today,” Young said.
“I’ve given my life to ThedaCare,” Kohler said. “They don’t care. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting in a court room right now after everything I’ve done for them.”
I guess it is more background info than quotes
The offer she eventually received from Ascension will give her “life-changing money” and fewer weekends that she needed to be on call, making it easier for her to be at home with family, she said.
Brian
Here’s ThedaCare’s side of the story, as it was presented to the court
It’s even dumber than I thought possible.
Two highlights………they claim, contrary to reality, that the departing employees “are currently employed by ThedaCare and ThedaCare expects their continued employment.”
And this one is so dumb my brain is having trouble parsing it.
“While Ascension may have an interest in protecting its “freedom of action” to hire staff, the inevitable results is that it prioritizes Ascension’s self-interest.
The mind boggles.
Maybe I have my capitalist blinders on, but I didn’t see anyone making these arguments in this thread. I did see several posters making the case that, in light of what the judge knew of the situation, a TRO that delayed the employees starting their new positions by one day (and wouldn’t have delayed them at all if Ascension made two available on call to ThedaCare) was reasonable. The judge, having now heard full arguments from both parties, ended the injunction. If ThedaCare made false or misleading claims in their request for the injection, I too hope that they’re sanctioned.
I love the hyperbole about how patients “might” survive transfer to other hospitals if they’re treated at Ascension. I suppose that when trauma patients have to be transferred from ThedaCare facilities to more advanced centers, they’re mostly DOA. In which case, ThedaCare would have no business treating trauma patients at all, being “only” a level II trauma center.
And their position would be hopelessly compromised if Ascension didn’t grant them use of one invasive radiology tech and one radiology-trained nurse per day to identify replacement workers? Please.
I speculated earlier that ThedaCare was mostly concerned about reputation and market share in this dispute. Their complaint backs this up.
“The loss of Neenah Medical Center’s status as a Level II trauma center – a status it has held since 1998 – and a Comprehensive Stroke Center will significantly damage its reputation among patients and in the industry.”
Arguably, this brouhaha has damaged its reputation plenty, regardless of the outcome as it pertains to certifications, which I suspect the hospital will keep.
If its other arguments aren’t much better than this, it’s hard to see ThedaCare winning its case that its competitor plotted to whisk away essential employees en masse.
Thanks. I didn’t see anything like that at the link, so i appreciate your quoting them.
Thank you for linking this article; I was very pleased to read:
A lawyer for ThedaCare said the seven employees would be compensated for Monday’s missed work at the higher wage they would have had if they’d started as planned at Ascension.
There was also at least one Go Fund Me started for the ThedaCare Seven, and when I saw it yesterday it had raised over $58,000 on a $50,000 goal.
Another tidbit that stood out, I think it was in Ascension’s filing but it might have been in one of the articles.
Because of their on-call status, at least some of the employees were required to live within 30 minutes of the hospital. This is apparently a common requirement, and an understandable one. I believe Ascension has the same requirement.
To be clear, I have no problem with this rule.
But it means that for at least some of these employees, Ascension’s St. Elizabeth hospital was literally their only other employment option in their chosen field - which makes ThedaCare’s actions even more egregious.
And it makes the fact that ThedaCare was trying to make a conspiracy over all the employees getting employment at the same location that much more ridiculous - because if they wanted to switch jobs in the same field, it was the only option.
I wonder if the judge will issue a written ruling after yesterday’s hearing. I hope he does, and I hope it’s……spectacular.
This is truly a management fuck-up for the ages. I love watching a good upper management train wreck. I wonder how many other employees at that facility will quit.
I don’t know. I think the TRO never should have been issued. This should have been laughed out of court. Despite being an at-will state the employees gave them about 30 days to find replacements. Perhaps this is why I should not be a judge, and maybe it is my ignorance of the legal system, but if that had come before me with those facts my response would be “Is it April 1st? Get out of here. You clowns.” I do agree I hope they’re sanctioned.
I am very happy with the resolution. ThedaCare gets bloody nose, the employees get to move on.
I saw a reference or two to this as well.
But then again we get into the question of: How can you force employees to be on-call for a company they don’t want to work at? Secondly, who was expected to pay for their work at Theda? Ascension or Theda? That part wasn’t made clear.
Dumber, and in some places, damn near fraudulent.
On January 14, 2022, ThedaCare attempted to negotiate with the departing IRC team members to continue their employment with ThedaCare or arrange for an orderly transition of employment that did not endanger patient care. ThedaCare and the departing IRC team members could not reach an agreement. (Detterman Aff. ¶ 31.)
After negotiations with the departing IRC team members failed, ThedaCare conducted negotiations with Ascension leadership on January 18, 2022 and January 19, 2022 to
discuss an orderly transition of the departing IRC team members from employment with ThedaCare to employment with Ascension. (Detterman Aff. ¶ 32.)
Way to completely lie about what happened. They “attempted to negotiate” with the employees by saying, “No, we’re not paying that much because you’re not worth it.” They they make it sound like these negotiations “failed” for some unspecified reason.
Negotiations didn’t “fail”, they chose to flat out reject any kind of compromise.
I listened to most of a Great Courses about the American legal system, so I’m basically a lawyer. I feel like I remember something about how, in civil cases, the court must presume that the plaintiff’s injury is real until the defendant proves otherwise.
Am I making that up? How often do civil cases actually get laughed out of court without even getting a preliminary hearing?
I’m definitely 100%, not a lawyer. So my viewpoint is based not on the law or process of law but just on the facts of the case as I knew them.
If I were the judge I’d be pretty pissed too that ThedaCare brought this before me at the very last minute and had seemingly ample time and opportunity to address it. But if there was even a small chance that there could be a severe negative health outcome for patients I’d say, “I’m not qualified to fully assess the merit of your claims right now, so I’ll grant the injunction temporarily and you’re gonna have your ass in here Monday morning to explain why I should stay this further.”
Presumably Ascension could have made it part of their job duties for that one day that the TRO applied. It’s not unheard of for health care providers lend out staff to other facilities. I assume Ascension would have paid them but you’re right it wasn’t clear.
For obvious reasons, the standard for injunctive relief is not “I’m not sure, so I’m just going to give it to you.” It wasn’t worth speculating on what hypothetically could have been pled before the hearing, but now that we know what the case was actually about, it was an injunction that obviously should not have been granted.
An injunction is supposed to be extraordinary relief for extraordinary situations. The lack of clarity over why it would be necessary is a strong argument against it, not an indication that maybe it should be granted just to be safe.
I mean, imagine the kind of shit people would be bringing before trial courts all the time on short notice. They already do, but imagine how much they would if it worked! It is not the ordinary practice of courts to grant these kinds of things and invite more meritless bullshit just to buy somebody a free weekend of not doing what they’re obviously gonna have to do.