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Resurrection Health Care — AFSCME Council 31 Continues to Fight

For two years, AFSCME Council 31 has been engaged in a hard fought campaign to organize 8,000 workers, including 2,000 nurses, at Resurrection Health Care (RHC) in Chicago. As part of the campaign, Council 31 has found that RHC treats its patients as badly as it treats its workers.

After it was revealed in June that RHC had slashed its provision of charity care and stepped up its practice of suing patients it knows are indigent, Council 31 petitioned the Cook County Assessor and the Cook County Board of Review to revoke the system's property-tax exemptions, charging that it had failed to fulfill its legal obligations as a charitable organization. In order to qualify for a tax exemption in Illinois, an organization must primarily provide charity and actively pursue its charitable responsibility. Tax-exempt hospitals must provide charity healthcare to patients without regard to their ability to pay. RHC is currently exempted from property tax liabilities worth tens of millions of dollars each year.

Two dozen Chicago aldermen have taken a public stance urging the Cook County Assessor to place RHC back on the property tax rolls. AFSCME Council 31 has been instrumental in the challenge to RHC's tax-exempt status. The union is seeking to ensure that RHC either fulfills its charitable obligations or pays its fair share of taxes.

RHC has made it a practice to file lawsuits against patients and use agressive debt-collection tactics, in some cases suing patients who lives below the federal poverty line. One former patient reported that she told the hospital she could only make payments of $50 a month, but RHC threatened to damage her credit if she didn't pay at least $400. Over the past four years, RHC has filed more than 2,000 collection lawsuits. Moreover, on average, Resurrection charges uninsured patients 75 percent more than an insured patient for the same services.

This November an array of tax and legal experts joined religious, community and union leaders in testifying before a hearing of the Chicago City Council's Finance Committee. Compelling evidence that RHC has failed to fulfill its charitable obligations was presented to an overflow crowd of alderman and union supporters. Aldermen were urged to investigate tax exemptions currently granted to Resurrection and asked to request that the assessor assess the value of all RHC properties. The assessor has the authority to place exempt properties on the tax rolls.

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