At press time, the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) was mobilizing its more than 50,000 members to challenge the Legislature and the governor to reject a New York commission’s order to privatize public hospital operations, which would cost state employee jobs and undercut vital healthcare services to communities.

The outcry stems from the Nov. 28 report of the New York State Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century directing significant changes to the State University of New York (SUNY) Health Science Centers in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse.

Under state law, which created the commission, the commission’s rulings take effect automatically unless the Legislature and the governor reject everything in the report. The federal government is offering its own lure, promising $1.5 billion in aid if the Legislature and governor accept the plan.

The most immediate concern to PEF is the commission’s order to merge SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse with Crouse Hospital.

PEF president Kenneth Brynien, who also is an AFT vice president, says the union isn’t opposed to an affiliation. “But we are absolutely opposed to the idea of relying on the failed operating model of Crouse,” Brynien says. Crouse Hospital, which has occupancy rates under 50 percent on average, recently emerged from bankruptcy after running up $91 million in debt, $62 million of which must be repaid.

Brynien says the commission, also known as the Berger commission after its chair Stephen Berger, chairman of private investment firm Odyssey Investment Partners, ignores a 2000 study that found SUNY Upstate’s operating structure is competitive and successful. Upstate Medical Center is financially sound and has an average occupancy rate of 80 percent.

“The commission has it backward,” Brynien says. “It only makes sense to rely on the public SUNY operating model if the merged hospital and the essential healthcare services they provide are to be successful.”

The commission also recommends a privatization feasibility study of two other SUNY teaching hospitals—Stony Brook on Long Island and Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. “These hospitals treat a large indigent population whose care could be threatened by privatization,” Brynien says, noting that “there is no evidence that privatization of these facilities would save any money.”

PEF represents approximately 900 nurses and other healthcare professionals at SUNY Upstate Medical Center and an additional 2,000 healthcare professionals at SUNY Downstate and SUNY Stony Brook. If these facilities are privatized, PEF-represented employees would lose their status as state employees, including the loss of their pension rights, union contract rights and civil service protections.