VNHC DIRECTOR WINS AWARD

Terri Briant Booth, Executive Director of Visiting Nurse Home Care, is the recipient of a 2006 Peace Builder Award, presented by Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center. Terri won the award in the Healthcare category for her commitment to an equitable, interested-based union negotiation process. She was honored along with seven other recipients at a fun and celebratory Peace Builder Award event on Saturday, November 4. The event recognizes individuals, groups, and organizations that have actively and thoughtfully contributed to creating a more peaceful community, and it serves as a fundraising event for the work of the Dispute Resolution Center.

Terri Briant Booth, Executive Director of Visiting Nurse Home Care, led our agency's management bargaining team in a successful contract negotiation with OPEIU Local 8 which represented 150+ Home Care Aides employed by VNHC.

The process began in May of 2005 with Terri signing a Partnership (neutrality) Agreement with OPEIU Local 8 in which she agreed to provide access to employees, not to interfere with the employees' right to organize and to recognize the union if it obtained a majority of authorization cards from employees.

Despite unsavory allegations and efforts of another union to question her neutrality, the National Labor Relations Board found Terri to have acted appropriately and she demonstrated that quality of fairness throughout the organizing and bargaining process. Terri was scrupulous in her consistent sharing of information about the many aspects of union organizing with our Home Care Aides, our supervisors, managers, and board members, as well as union representatives.

Contract bargaining began September 22, 2005 and commenced April 5, 2006 after about 10 meetings of collective bargaining. The bargaining process could be characterized as transparent. Even though the formal interest-based bargaining process was not used, Terri promoted an openness and honesty that naturally brought forth the interests of our nonprofit agency and its workers.

While there were areas of conflict and disagreement in the contract, Terri and the management bargaining team (Terri, our Finance Manager Judy Tuor, and HR Liaison Julie Barcus) maintained a creative attitude that influenced the course of negotiations in a positive way.

Information that is traditionally held "close to the vest" in collective bargaining, such as finances, was openly shared. Terri often referred to the "bucket" that represented our capacity and that the union and its employee bargaining team could not expect to get five gallons from a four-gallon bucket. Terri's humor and determination to secure a positive outcome for both the agency and the employees resulted in a contract that preserves the financial health of Visiting Nurse Home Care and give its 150-plus Home Care Aides a fair wage scale, improved benefits, and good working conditions.

On the day of signing the Collective Bargaining Agreement, May 1st (ironically, International Workers' Day), Terri was presented with a rare honor by the union - and fitting the standard of levity set by negotiations. The union team brought gifts, along with a celebratory lemon tart, including a OPEIU Local 8 tote bag filled with union buttons, a copy of Sylvester Stallone's campy union organizing film F.I.S.T., a union mug, a Shop Steward's Handbook, and a name tag lanyard which Terri wears proudly.

I believe Terri deserves to chosen as a Whatcom County Peacemaker for the reasons listed above and because she shepherded the agency through what is typically a brutal process in a unique, lighthearted and yet professional way.