Judge Lifts Order Preventing Wisconsin Hospital Workers From Starting New Jobs
A hospital system had sought to temporarily prevent seven employees from leaving for other jobs.
By Eduardo Medina
Published Jan. 24, 2022
Updated Jan. 25, 2022, 4:58 a.m. ET
A judge in Wisconsin on Monday lifted an order that had temporarily blocked seven employees of ThedaCare, a major regional hospital system, from leaving for new jobs with another health care network until it could find people to replace them.
The dismissal of a temporary injunction cleared the way for the workers to begin their new jobs with Ascension Northeast Wisconsin. Last week, ThedaCare sued Ascension, seeking to temporarily keep the workers from leaving and touching off an unusual labor dispute rooted in twin crises roiling the health care industry: a shortage of workers, many of whom are demanding higher wages, and a raging coronavirus pandemic.
Ascension Northeast Wisconsin said in a statement before Monday's hearing that ThedaCare had "an opportunity but declined to make competitive counter offers to retain its former employees."
The employees, members of ThedaCare's interventional radiology and cardiovascular team, were at-will employees and were not contractually obligated to stay with ThedaCare for a fixed time, according to Ascension, which is part of one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the United States.
ThedaCare, which operates seven hospitals and provides care to more than 600,000 people annually, said in its lawsuit that it was seeking to "protect the community" by temporarily retaining the employees, who accepted new jobs with Ascension in December and were supposed to start on Monday.
It added that the employees, who together make up a majority of an 11-person team, provide "vital care for critically ill patients" and that Ascension should have known that this action would decimate ThedaCare's ability to provide critical care to trauma and stroke victims in the Fox River Valley, a three-county stretch from Green Bay to Oshkosh.
Lynn Detterman, a senior vice president of ThedaCare South Region, said in a statement on Monday, "We know this situation has put the team members who decided to leave ThedaCare in the middle of a difficult situation."
"Our goal was always to create a short-term orderly transition, not to force team members to continue working at ThedaCare", she said.
David Muth, a lawyer for Ascension, said in a motion filed on Monday that ThedaCare was blaming others for its own mistakes, and that it had attempted to turn its "poor management" into "a disruptive personal emergency for everyone, anyone, but itself."
Last week, Judge Mark McGinnis of Outagamie County Circuit Court granted ThedaCare's request for a temporary restraining order blocking the employees from starting at Ascension this week as planned, and told the lawyers for both parties on Friday to seek a deal, The Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wis., reported.
The lawsuit was filed as hospital systems across the country, including in Wisconsin, are struggling to retain workers during the pandemic.
But Joe Veenstra, a labor and employment lawyer in La Crosse, Wis., said the lawsuit was an unusual and far-reaching attempt by ThedaCare to interfere with the free market and to keep employees without having to pay them higher wages.
"We've definitely entered an alternate universe," Mr. Veenstra said, adding: "Now we have managements incapable of controlling labor and asking courts to prevent the free market from happening. It's just, we're living in an upside down world right now."
I image that Judge caught hell from all over about this, and rightfully so.
