Your UAPD Committee has been meeting with AHS Management weekly since August to negotiate a new contract for the UAPD physicians and dentists. So far, we have proposed improvements to tuition reimbursement; increased educational leave; board certification fee reimbursement; improvements to health and leave benefits; and, most importantly, protected administrative time and patient panel caps for Ambulatory Care physicians. In two weeks UAPD will be submitting a comprehensive wage proposal, which will include both cost of living and market adjustments. Initially, the deadline for proposals was set for next week, however, AHS requested to extend the deadline to September 24th because they “had to make a few changes to their economic proposal after identifying and correcting an error in the physician data.”
Management has advanced several proposals, most of which consist of “clean-up” language that addresses employer mandates under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, two of their proposals aim to reduce the legal rights of the Union and of the doctors – contrary to state and federal laws. So, we anticipate management’s wage proposal to be another weapon against UAPD represented doctors, so be prepared for a fight!