CHICAGO | While County Board President Toni Preckwinkle continues to push for the closure of Oak Forest Hospital, as many as 1,100 county health workers are facing layoffs, according to union officials.
The affected workers, members of Service Employees International Union Local 73 employed by the Cook County Health and Hospital System, received layoff notices early last month, SEIU Local 73 Communications Director Adam Rosen said.
SEIU represents about 4,000 county employees, including about 2,000 that work in the health system. Of those receiving notices, Rosen said about 200 work at Oak Forest Hospital.
Lucio Guerrero, the CCHHS director for public relations, played down the notices stating in an email, "There isn't much to report on this. We have put out the lay off notices," continuing, "not all these people will get laid off."
Guerrero explained procedures mandated any employee that may be affected would receive a notice, but official layoffs would be determined by seniority.
"As far as I am aware, seniority is what counts," Guerrero wrote.
Rosen said the notices overwhelmingly targeted more senior employees.
"They chopped off the top," said Rosen.
Rosen said SEIU is concerned the union wasn't informed prior to members receiving the notices. Rosen also said the notices stated the president, vice president and treasurer of SEIU Local 73 were to be carbon copied, but top officials only heard of the layoffs when recipients provided them the letters.
At the beginning of May, the county health system reported revenue shortfalls had caused a $14 million deficit. The report said overtime would be cut because the rest of the departments were under budget.
The same report indicated the impending closure of Oak Forest Hospital would save the system $20 million.
"The analysis of current expenditures indicates that the system is under budget in most expense categories," the report stated.
The report made no mention of impending layoffs.
Sonja Vogel, communications and marketing coordinator at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital, explained the layoffs.
"The layoff notices that were recently sent to employees are tied to the implementation of our strategic plan, which has been several years in the making and which was approved by the CCHHS Board and the Cook County Board last summer," she said. "These were also built into our FY2011 budget when it was submitted to the County Board last fall. They are not related to a projected budget shortfall."
