National Nurses United

C atholic Healthcare West nurses probably didn't expect to be making history at 6 a.m., but they did. When CHW negotiators walked back to the bargaining table with CHW RNs in the early morning hours of July 12, the two sides had already been at it for a straight 30 hours. The 25 or so members of the negotiating team were exhausted. Some had been playing rounds of Scrabble or cards in between sessions to stay awake through the night; others were improvising beds out of conference tables for catnaps. So when CHW sat down and announced that it finally agreed to CNA's terms on the last major sticking point – a guarantee of the state's RN staffing ratios within the contract language – RNs were so tired that at first some thought they might have misheard. "We were stunned," said Kathy Dennis, an RN with Mercy General in Sacramento. "It took a while for it to sink in." With that major roadblock resolved, the bargaining team and CHW quickly wrapped up the remaining details and announced they had come to what many are calling a historic settlement for 4,700 CHW nurses. CHW RNs voted to overwhelmingly approve the four-year contract on July 18. Besides the unprecedented ratio language, the contract spec- ifies a 26 to 28 percent raise for the RNs over four years, protects pensions by requiring that all changes in benefits be negotiated and the plan's health overseen by an RN committee, sets new and increased funding for retiree healthcare benefits, and designates a Professional Practice Committee Quality Representative at each facility whose job is to identify and propose solutions for prob- lem issues. CHW also accepted a better agreement on CNA organ- izing at non-union CHW hospitals. The contract included some other "firsts": CHW committed to having designated, trained staff help RNs lift and handle patients, and RNs also took a first step toward having more con- trol over new hospital technology by securing language that says new technology will not limit RNs' exercise of their clinical judg- ment, and that new technology should "enhance, not degrade" nursing skills. The contract also sets them up to bargain with some 4,000 other CHW RNs in a statewide master contract in 2009. But the big victory came on directly including staffing ratios into the contract. CHW is probably the only hospital corporation in the country to have done so. During six months of bargaining, and even just the week before, CHW negotiators had resisted agreeing to honor ratios as part of a collective bargaining agree- ment. The hospital corporation said they would include the ratio language only if RNs consented to a caveat that released CHW hospitals from ratios if state ratio laws were overturned. But RNs were seeking to include ratios in their contract precisely because the Legislature or governor might revoke those laws. "By that day, while all the other issues like retiree health and pay equity were still important, we all really understood that the number one issue for nurses everywhere was the staffing ratios and there was no backing off our position about that," said Barbara Williams, a psychiatric emergency RN from Dominican hospital who also sits on the bargaining team and CNA board. The nurses were so resolute in their goal to include ratios that it looked to Williams as if CHW realized it had to take the demand seriously and make a choice. "Were they going to stand with the industry and Schwarzenegger's approach, or were they really going to follow what they say they believed in their mis- sion and philosophy and stand with the nurses and the patients?" said Williams. Once they decided to follow ratios because they agreed to, not because the law forced them to, the negotiators started smiling and looked relieved and relaxed, she added. Bargaining team members, while pleased with the contract, said that there's still more work to be done. Ratios need to be enforced and disputes grieved. More nurse reps and PPC mem- bers need to be recruited. And some facilities are still striving for improvements, such as the RNs at Mercy Merced who are work- ing on resolving pay equity and other local issues by August. "It's not a pot of gold," said Williams, "but it's a reasonable contract that deals with the major issues." —Staff Report Sealed Deal CHW nurses win ratios and other major gains in new contract C A L I F O R N I A N U R S E S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5 13

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