Cambridge Hospital group, nurses to resume talks

The nurses are already declaring victory, but the Alliance said cuts to employee retirement benefits remain necessary to keep the financially struggling hospital group afloat. “It doesn’t change the fact that the money to fund this doesn’t exist,’’ said spokesman Doug Bailey.

At issue is a roughly 40 percent reduction to the nurses’ retirement health benefits, imposed by the hospital group after the nurses’ union in June rejected management’s final offer to rework benefits.

On Friday, the state Employment Relations Board found the health care provider violated state law by “unilaterally changing the retiree health insurance benefits of bargaining unit members’’ and ordered it to restore the benefit and return to contract negotiations.

The ruling could also complicate a potential sale or partnership, which the hospital group has been considering, Bailey said. In addition to Cambridge Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance also operates Somerville Hospital and Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett. All three serve large populations of Medicaid patients and low-income immigrants.

About 1,100 of 1,400 public sector Cambridge Hospital employees have already been hit with the retirement health benefit reductions, including social workers, laborers, maintenance workers, and lab technicians in four other unions. Cambridge Hospital has about 3,000 employees.

The cuts will help compensate for an accounting change that increased expenses by $12 million a year, Alliance officials said, a major factor in its $27 million deficit for the 2009 fiscal year. In the past two years the chain has eliminated 450 full-time positions, closed six of its 26 health centers, limited Somerville Hospital to out-patient services only, stopped offering in-patient pediatric and addiction services, and phased out 35 adult psychiatric beds.

Without the retirement concessions, the Alliance had estimated it would have had to lay off 100 additional workers.

Cambridge Hospital nurse Betty Kaloustian said the nurses have already agreed to a wage freeze, elimination of the pension for new hires, and an increase in health insurance rates for part-timers.

“We’re very cognizant of the fact that the hospital is in trouble,’’ said Kaloustian, cochair of the nurses’ local bargaining unit who last month picketed the hospital with 300 other nurses and supporters.

In July, the Alliance offered to allow nurses who agreed to retire by the end of August to maintain the full health benefit, which covers 90 percent of retirees’ health care costs. Thirteen nurses took the “forced retirement,’’ according to the union — including Christine Jorge, 59, who began working at Cambridge Hospital in 1974. Jorge said she had not planned to retire but decided keeping the full health benefit was more important than a few more years’ salary. Like the other hospital workers facing reduced benefits, Jorge is covered under a public employee health plan that for a long time didn’t include Medicare.

“It was a little frightening to think a benefit I’ve always had would now be taken away from us when we’d probably need it most,’’ said Jorge, a nurse in the post-anesthesia care unit.

Despite the ruling by the Employment Relations Board, Jorge said she won’t change her mind about retiring. The 13 nurses, many of whom have been at the hospital for decades, haven’t heard a word of congratulations or encouragement from management, according to Jorge. “If they can’t acknowledge us after 30 years, we’re not valued very much,’’ she said.

And even with the two groups poised to resume negotiations, an end to the stalemate is nowhere in sight.

“Our position will be the same,’’ Bailey said. “We need to make this cut.’’

Katie Johnston Chase can be reached at johnstonchase@ globe.com.