UI Health Workers To Be “Rewarded” for Pandemic Sacrifices

The real heroes of the Coronavirus pandemic have been the healthcare workers who worked even longer hours to protect their community while giving up pay bonuses and even foregoing vacation or being forced to use it or lose it, sacrificing more of their personal and family time in the process. It "comes with the job", yes, but they deserve to get back what they've given up more than most, and those that work for the University of Iowa Health Care are getting some of it back.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports on a "success" payout being given to more than 12,000. "Success" payout. Sounds weird to tie your workers receiving their entitled benefits to your entity's unexpected success but that's essentially the case.  The board of regents has to approve, but if it does, a lump-sum payment will be provided on September 1, and will vary according to the employees' base salary. The payments will range from an average of $1,139 for workers earning an average wage of $37,953 to an average of $5,902 for faculty earning an average base salary of $196,738.

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Staff making an annual salary of $50,000 or more had to take two weeks unpaid leave, return 100 hours of accrued vacation or offer a combination of the two. Those making under $50,000 had to sacrifice half that amount--equal to one-week unpaid leave or 50 vacation hours. Officials at UI say all of these sacrifices were to avoid layoffs that other health care entities were forced to make.

Enjoy your relaxation time and financial "windfall", health care workers. You sure earned it.