National Nurses United

NewsBriefs 6/13/06 2:46 PM Page 9 Organizing and Bargaining Report {just joined} Citrus Valley Medical Center egistered nurses at Citrus Valley Medical Center are celebrating a second time as the National Labor Relations Board overruled in April hospital administration's objections to their vote for CNA/NNOC representation. "We feel justice prevailed," said Diane Flores, an RN at the hospital. "We won fairly. All nurses want is a fair contract to improve quality of care." In an effort to delay the nurses' victory, the hospital had filed a number of baseless objections to the January election. Citrus Valley RNs elected a bargaining council despite the objections and recommended a vote to strike in their first days. The investigation and formal hearing took about four months, during which time nurses applied public pressure to the hospital by leading a candlelight vigil and mounting letter-writing campaigns to management, local politicians, and the press. New contract provisions will assure the Citrus Valley's two facilities, Inter-Com- county's adherence to the state's RN-tomunity Campus and Queen of patient staffing ratios and that the Valley Campus, had been [CALIFORNIA] the introduction of new techamong the largest of Los Angenology will enhance, not deles County's remaining nonunion hospitals grade nursing skills nor substitute for an RN's before the landslide 358–247 vote. clinical judgment. The county also agreed to implement safe patient lifting policies. {just settled} R San Mateo County Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas some 380 rns that work for San Mateo County approved a new contract in late May after coming very close to striking for two days. The two-year-and-ten-month contract gives the RNs, who are among the lowestpaid RNs in Northern California and work at a total of more than 40 acute care, outpatient, and correctional locations in cities from Daly City to Palo Alto, improved compensation, retiree health benefits, and introduces new RN and patient safety protections to their workplaces. Under the new pact, all San Mateo RNs will receive across-the-board raises of 12 percent over the contract. More experienced RNs and nurse practitioners will also receive additional increases. The county also agreed to increase retiree health benefits. after staging two strikes, defeating a slick decertification campaign, and rallying constantly for more than two years, some 270 registered nurses finally won in March an almost-epic first contract battle with Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas. The two-year contract brings Scripps nurses' wages up to area standards and establishes a host of other provisions, now standard among CNA/ NNOC RNs, that are meant to protect nursing practice and improve patient safety. "This agreement is a step forward to protect our patients, and will consolidate our power as nurses," said Melissa Clark, a telemetry RN who helped the bargaining and organizing campaigns. The northern San Diego County hospital had long resisted the most basic elements of CNA/NNOC-negotiated contracts, such as JUNE 2006 W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G (From left) CNA/NNOC Vice President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN and board members Diane Koorsones, RN and Phyllis Brown, RN prepare for bargaining with Kaiser Permanente. basing compensation on a regular salary-step schedule for years of service instead of the more subjective performance-based model. The average pay raise after ratification is 6 percent, with some longtime nurses receiving as much as 13.5 percent. Disagreements over staffing decisions can now also be appealed to an outside arbitrator, restrictions are now in place against unsafe floating by RNs to units in which they do not have the proper expertise or orientation, and mandatory overtime is now banned. Sutter Lakeside Hospital about 125 rns at Sutter Lakeside Hospital approved a new four-year contract in April that makes major improvements to a wide range of benefits, including patient safety provisions, a 30 percent pay raise over the contract term, retiree healthcare coverage, and enhanced pension benefits. "We negotiated a strong agreement that will enable us to hold on to our experienced REGISTERED NURSE 9

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