Dear Mr. Bernard and Ms. Norville,
On behalf of the employees of the St. Eustatius Health Care Foundation (SEHCF) All for 1 Union (AF1) is kindly requesting an urgent investigation regarding the issues mentioned in the subject line of this letter which states the ongoing concerns at SEHCF.
Noncompliance with CLA
June 27, 2023, AF1 sent a letter to SEHCF requesting that the concerns mentioned would be handled urgently. SEHCF responded on July 17, 2023, that the points of concern would be taken care of. Sadly, SEHCF admitted in another response letter of January 18, 2024, reference FR/2024/01/01, that “uniforms should have been ordered earlier in accordance with the CLA” while considering that this noncompliance dates back to 2019. AF1 interprets this statement as acknowledgement of sustained neglect of task.
Another specific issue concerning noncompliance, is the payment of “cessantia” to employees who transferred from Queen Beatrix Medical Center to SEHCF when the reorganization took place. Up to Tuesday, March 12, 2024, the employees have not been paid.
Misuse of authority/Victimization
The employees of the SEHCF/AF1 decided in late January 2024 that industrial actions were the last option and started wearing black T-shirts. Since then, the interim director has decided to subject a group of employees to a biased one-man evaluation exercise and promised to hand over his findings to his successor. Employees that have made use of their rights to demonstrate against the issues at SEHCF are being denied opportunities to fill vacant positions. This contains a serious breach of their civil and employment rights and is a clear example of victimization.
Nepotism
The husband of a management team member has been employed at the SEHCF for some months now in a position for which SEHCF never posted a vacancy.
Conflict of interest
For the last couple of years, SEHCF has been making use of the services of a consultancy firm to manage the HRM [humn resources management – Ed.]. The representative of this consultancy firm is also the secretary of the SEHCF board of directors, the same person who is facilitating the CLA reform and negotiations. This construction makes it difficult if not outright impossible to reach non-biased agreements during and after negotiations. Additionally, AF1 members are being bombarded with petty insignificant concerns (nit-picking) by this person in the position at HRM.
AF1 is willing to provide written evidence and witnesses corroborating these issues to reach a resolution in an immediate yet non-discriminatory manner. Thank you for your attention to these issues. We look forward to your swift response and we strive to work together to resolve these issues promptly.
All for 1 Union (AF1)
