After several months of deadlocked negotiations, the local 2166 labor union and the UNM Hospital administration signed a pay contract Friday.
The contract gives employees of 2166 a 3 percent raise. The union is part of the Mountain West Regional Conference of Carpenters and represents 1,132 of the hospital's technical and support staff.
Wages are negotiated every July.
"We're pretty upset with the wage package that we had to accept this year," said Bill Browne, the union's business agent. "The reasoning behind it is they don't have to pay us any more, and that they're not going to - not that they didn't have the money. They had the money."
UNMH Human Resources Administrator Jim Pendergast said "typical hospital finances" prevented the administration from agreeing to a higher raise, adding administrators did not receive a raise this year either.
He said he is pleased the contract was signed.
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Pendergast said the raise was small, because the hospital spent more than $80 million in free medical care and more than 50 percent of its budget in employee salaries and benefits.
To make up for the small wage increase, the administration paid union employees who were scheduled for a performance-based 2.7 percent raise early, and all other union employees a three-tenths of a 1 percent raise, Pendergast said.
"Obviously having the money in your pocket today is worth more than having the money in your pocket six months from now," he said.
Browne said the administration packaged the 2.7 percent raise with the three-tenths of 1 percent raise to give the impression of a larger raise.
Otherwise, the union is generally satisfied with the rest of the contract, Browne said, including provisions that regulate working conditions, overtime and employee insurance.
In June, negotiations stalled, and the union called in a third party.
Pendergast said mediator David Martinez of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service was successful in facilitating greater understanding between the union and the administration.
Martinez, who for many years helped Cesar Ch†vez lead the United Farm Workers movement, said he could not discuss the details of the mediation session, but the two parties successfully negotiated a resolution.
"If the agreement was ratified, then that means the union was satisfied," he said. "Otherwise, they would have rejected it."
Martinez said more than 200 federal mediators across the country are called to help resolve labor disputes.
"We're not there as advocates," he said. "We're there as impartial third parties who are concerned not about being pro-union or pro-management, but certainly pro-settlement."
Browne said the administration did not bargain with the union in good faith, and it became clear the union would have to accept the small raise or nothing at all.
"The only other option was to go on strike," he said. "Being a hospital that takes care of indigent care, we didn't think that would be in the interest of the community."
Though the administration would not agree to a larger pay raise, Browne said one positive outcome of the negotiations was a 2 percent bonus for employees who have been working for the hospital for 15 years or more.
