Former hospital workers await pay
Some former employees of Brownsville General Hospital are watching with interest as plans unfold to reopen the facility as a community-owned hospital once again. The hospital was community-owned from 1916 through March 2005, when it was taken over by a group of private investors. That investment group closed the hospital in January 2006, surrendering the hospital’s license to the state Department of Health. The investors declared bankruptcy a short time later.
The nonprofit board that has owned the building and property all along has been attempting to reopen the hospital since the closing, most recently announcing the hiring of a new chief executive officer, Richard Hritz of Johnstown.
It’s not yet known if the hospital will reopen as a union facility, but Gil Gall, the representative for the former nurses through PSEA-Healthcare, said a return to the hospital is a possibility.
“The 15 to 20 nurses I’ve talked to would consider coming back if the conditions were right,” Gall said.
The former hospital staff members are still awaiting compensation through the bankruptcy court, Gall said. The former employees were awarded damages for improper notification of the closing under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act and for unfair labor practices, but so far they have not received that money, Gall said.
“The creditors were unwilling to pay anything other than the last week’s wages in advance of a final settlement,” Gall said.
The bankruptcy plan administrator, Robert Bernstein, recently filed a motion seeking an extension to file claim objections with the bankruptcy court in Pittsburgh. In that motion, Bernstein notes that the agreements with the nurses union and the Office and Professional Employees International Union under the WARN Act and National Labor Relations Act resulted in priority unsecured claims of about $770,000.
“The debtor’s estate currently has insufficient assets to cover the previously allowed unsecured claims, making any claim objections against general unsecured creditors moot at this time,” Bernstein wrote in the motion. “Therefore, Bernstein believes that any general claim objection process should be frozen until the estate has sufficient assets to distribute to the general unsecured creditors, if ever.”
Bernstein is seeking an extension until the end of the year for the claim objection deadline.