Last month, hospital workers currently in negotiations with their employer, HCA-affiliated Osceola Regional Medical Center, participated in a wage inequality town hall organized by Congressman Alan Grayson in Poinciana, FL.



Letty Laureano, a unit secretary and monitor tech at ORMC told her Congressman and the audience, “Hospital jobs used to mean a secure financial future. I have worked at Osceola Regional Medical Center for ten years, but my financial future is uncertain because my wages are capped.”



More than 1,000 of Letty’s co-workers’ wages are capped at 19 HCA-affiliated hospitals in Florida because the company freezes workers’ wages once they reach a certain amount. In addition, some of her fellow caregivers’ starting wages are as low as $9.05 an hour and many struggle to make ends meet.



Letty added, “I believe freezing our wages is just wrong, especially when HCA-affiliated hospitals are so profitable that HCA’s top five executives earn more than $150 million in the last two years.”



Congress Grayson promised the ORMC healthcare workers he would support their struggle for fair union contracts that include lifting wage caps and raising minimum wages. Healthcare workers have been in negotiations with 19 HCA-affiliated hospitals in Florida since February 2014 and have decided to take their concerns about low-starting wages and capped wages to their communities by talking with elected officials and leafleting in neighborhoods near their hospitals.