National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:Sept CX 10/27/09 11:52 AM Page 7 Fremont-Rideout RNs Win First Contr ct a A CALIFORNIA fter a bruising three-year fight against a particularly harsh employer, RNs at Fremont-Rideout Health Group in Northern California finally ratified their first contract on Sept. 3. The one-year contract provides major patient care protections and professional gains, including for the first time a professional practice committee composed entirely of direct-care RNs, new safe "floating" provisions that prevent the assignment of RNs to units where they do not have expertise, and secure retirement and major improvements in healthcare coverage copayments. The new contract also ensures grievance and arbitration language for the 450 nurses at the Marysville and Yuba City facilities that make up the Fremont-Rideout hospital system. If a nurse believes she has been disciplined inappropriately or some portion of the contract has been violated, she can file a grievance. If the employer and the union don't agr ee with the decision, they can appeal to a third-party arbitrator. In the past, the final arbitrator was Fremont-Rideout's vice president of human resources. "It's great for us," said Lissette Willard, a medical surgical RN at Rideout Hospital. When Willard started working at Rideout Hospital over two years ago in the cardiac unit, she said she did not feel welcome and was often unfairly blamed for problems. "It was a constant battle, a constant watching over my shoulder. The stress was incredible," she remembered. Eventually, Willard moved to nephrology, where she works today. With the contract's grievance and arbitration language, Willard said, "I feel safer. I feel secure in my job. I feel that if anything is done unjustly in my job I have somebody fighting for me." Additionally, the contract secures up to 24 hours of paid continuing education leave each year, with an extra eight hours of paid time for nurses who need clinical certifications. "This gives us a better opportunity to gain those continuing education credits," said Katherine Zubal, a medical surgical RN at Fremont Medical Center. "Fremont-Rideout does not have any policy that states they have to support those continuing education credits. Now, with the new contract, we're offered more than we were getting. It's a step. We're working for SEPTEMBER 2009 From left: Fremont-Rideout Health Group RN leaders Darren Cardoza and Lissette Willard. additional improvements in the next contract." Since September 2006, when FremontRideout RNs voted by 64 percent to join CNA/NNOC, Fremont-Rideout management has conducted an unrelenting campaign to oust the union. A ccording to feder al tax forms that Fremont-Rideout filed with the IRS, in the one year period July 2006 to June 2007, the hospital system spent $652,525 on anti-union consultants and attorneys to try to prevent a first union contract. Additionally, the employer spent $1,702,950 to bring in traveling nurses to fill in for RNs who went on strike or were pulled away from the bedside to attend anti-union meetings. "We're protecting patient care, we're trying to make it more safe at our facilities," said Zubal. "We're fighting against a hospital that is definitely not siding with the nurses. Over and over again our proposals got refused, tossed out the door. They weren't listening to the needs of the nurses. They walked out on negotiations, and we can't have them walk out as we try to establish our needs with respect to patient care and safety. Basically, it was a staring game." Management's intransigence drove the RNs into multiple strikes, culminating in a one-day strike in March 2008 to which Fremont-Rideout responded with a 9-day lockout. According to Darren Cardoza, a Rideout Hospital ICU RN, the lockout "was a sign to everyone that they cared more about having W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G the upper hand than patient care or their employees." He added, "We have a lot of single moms. They can't afford to miss 10 days of work." The health system's violation of federal labor law was so brazen that the National Labor Relations Board filed suit and issued a "10( j)" order, which is the strongest weapon in the arsenal of the boar d, to for ce the employer to "cease and desist" its union-busting activities, and bargain in good faith. In April 2009, a U.S. District Court judge ordered Fremont-Rideout Health Group to return to the bargaining table, negotiate with its RNs and recognize CNA/NNOC as their union representative. Although the hospital returned to negotiations with the nurses, it continued to try to undermine the union. But nurses persev ered. "It felt really, really good to win," said Cardoza, who said he was so emotional when the final votes were being counted that he had to leave the room. "Over the course of three years people learned a lot. A lot of people thought the union was going to do the work for them, that they could sit back with their hands folded and watch the bulldogs do the work. The policy changes, the recruitment and retention work – that's the kind of stuff w e have to do for ourselves. This year we want to show people what having a union can do." —sarah e. clark REGISTERED NURSE 7

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