PRMCE RNs Making progress
/
Our Union Bargaining Team: Kristen Crowder, Kimball Conlon, Carrie Rimel, Stephanie Sausman, Amanda Chinnick, Tulena Lammers, Terry Pierce, Scott Ryan, and Juan Stout
We bargained back-to-back dates this week May 5 -7 and will return to the bargaining table June 9 - 11. This week our team brought two guest speakers to present to Providence and answer questions about new big picture benefit proposals: Laura Hopkins, Executive Director of the Healthcare Training Fund, and Sean Embly, Union Trustee on the UFCW Sound Variable Annuity Pension Plan.
Our team proposed most of our initial proposals except Health Care benefits. Providence has failed to provide all demographic and wage information that the Union has requested, to do a full analysis and costing of potential health care and retirement solutions.
One of our priorities is to address safety for nurses and our community. One of our top priorities is to address workplace violence and our team shared many stories of coworkers who have been assaulted on the job. We also shared stories about parking lot concerns and made proposals on needed safety improvements.
This week involved lots of discussion on wages, staffing, and retention. We continue to discuss whether this will be a two year or three-year contract. Both parties have agreed to filling in all ghost steps.
We came prepared and have made a lot of progress in a short period of time. This will allow us to focus on the issues that are most important to nurses and be able to assess how much we may need to engage the community in support of staffing, retention, and patient care.
Our team will be sharing highlights and tentative agreements reached in our updates- join us for the Contract Action Team meetings to dig into details!
Note: Our team is being transparent on proposals throughout the bargaining process and the final recommended agreement may not include these items.
Priorities we highlighted this week:
Competitive wages for recruitment and retention
Continuation of free parking
New safety and workplace violence prevention language
Inclement weather language that the Techs and Pros won at PRMCE
Improvements to Staffing and Staffing Committee language
Filling vacant shifts at time of schedule posting (removal of 20% threshold)
Emergent Needs Coverage Pay
Focusing holidays on inclusion of Veteran’s Day and definition of Christmas eve night for night shift nurses
Holidays and low census on standby, added definition of time
Required effort to give 1.5 hours notice of low census before shift
Rest between shifts pay for the full subsequent shift
Break relief nurses: 1 for every 6 nurses (including closed units), in addition to the DOH posted matrix
Clarified hours for 3rd shift weekend shifts
Improvements to assignment of low census: clarification and mitigation for excessive low census
Annual Market competitiveness review and required wage adjustments
Low Census Standby will be offered to nurses placed on low census
Improvements to premiums including but not limited to: low census standby, standby on call, weekend, charge and relief charge
Staffing Premium when deviation occurs from DOH matrix/staffing plan
Pension Plan in addition to current 401k retirement plan
Continuity for Healthstreams completion and compensation
Health Care Training Trust for improved continuing education benefits
Compensation and FTE protection for participation in workplace committees
New tentative agreements reached:
Roster improvement to prevent dues errors
Meeting rooms for union business with 72 hours advance notice
Hospital will meet to discuss safety measures within 96 hours of a Declared State of Emergency (prior 14 days)
Hospital Staffing Committee will review monthly and quarterly missed meal and rest breaks
Recognition of DNP for premium pay
Removed outdated MOUs from the back of the contract
Improved bereavement benefits
You can find all bargaining updates on our union contract webpage here >>
Join us for our regular Contract Action Team (CAT) meetings every other Tuesday to dive into details, ask questions, and help build solidarity in our units.
“This has been a respectful and productive bargaining process. There has been movement on both sides and collaboration on language. While we recognize we are early in negotiations, the big movement and progress is yet to come in our next sessions. We are hopeful that the collaborative tone continues moving forward. Join us next week to hear the details!” - Our Bargaining Team
JOIN the next Contract Action Team (CAT) Meeting: Tuesday, May 12 at 8pm via Zoom >>
Password: union
TAKE ACTION:
Continue to wear your Yellow and Blue union colors
We have the right to wear our Union bandanas, swag, and colors- let’s get creative and have fun with it.
Questions or to find out how you can get involved, contact a member of the Bargaining Team or Union Representative Anthony Cantu, 206-436-6566.
