(2022-01-25) Column When A Medical Team Quit This Hospital Sued To Force Them To Keep Working

Column: When a medical team quit, this hospital sued to force them to keep working. a Wisconsin hospital has been trying to break new ground in the field by suing to stop a team of seven healthcare workers from quitting their jobs and taking posts at another hospital. As we write, the workers are in limbo. Outagamie County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis granted the former employer’s request for a temporary injunction preventing the workers from taking up their new jobs. But he didn’t order them to keep working at their original jobs.

The conflict involves seven members of an 11-member cardiovascular team providing urgent care to stroke victims at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center in Neenah, Wisc., about an hour south of Green Bay.

one of the workers, who told Judge McGinnis by letter that Ascension had job openings that were better “not just in pay but also a better work/life balance.”

The seven workers say they all applied on their own initiative. They asked ThedaCare to match the offers but ThedaCare declined, stating that “the long term expense to ThedaCare was not worth the short term cost,” Breister wrote

The injunction acts as a judicial version of the “non-compete” clauses

They may be on their way out nationwide, however, as President Biden last year issued an executive order directing the Federal Trade Commission to consider regulations banning any practices that impede worker mobility. The FTC has begun the process.