Bargaining Update: Management Continues to Put Bandaids on Gaping Wounds
Time to let our Patients and Community Know!
After a seven-week break we met with management to continue contract negotiations. We were hoping they would come back with comprehensive responses to our contract proposals, but they came back with only seven responses. We were unable to reach any tentative agreements today. See below for a summary chart of today’s responses by management.Our bargaining committee expressed frustration that over the last seven weeks since we last met, our biggest items have been left unaddressed: staffing, wages, and benefits despite nurses leaving every day and fewer nurses coming in to replace them.
Maternity nurses implored management to immediately stop the extremely dangerous practice of pulling from their areas in an attempt to alleviate pressure on
med-surg floors. We all know dangerous practices like these lead to preventable ICU admissions, injuries to mothers and babies, including life-long complications
for our smallest patients. One NICU nurse spoke about a baby who coded and was declared dead, but was fortunately brought back. Having experienced nurses able to care for babies to prevent a code and to deal with codes is the difference between life and death. These are the sort of experiences that nurses leave the profession
over, not just the hospital.
Frustratingly, management kicked the can down the road on this important issue even though maternity nurses have continuously expressed their concerns to hospital management.
RGH nurses are done with the excuses. Management is well aware of the patients (sometimes our own family members) stuck in a chair in the ED for a week. They know about the stable patients who end up in our ICUs because of inadequate staffing. They know that the moral harm, low pay and risks to our licenses have driven nurses away at a much higher rate than other hospitals (many units have over 70% vacancy rates).
|
OUR ORIGINAL PROPOSAL |
MANAGEMENT RESPONSE |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Personnel files and evals |
Minor infractions dropped off after a year |
All infractions stay and can be used in arbitrations against employees |
|
Grievance and arbitration |
Binding arbitration with more time to file grievance |
Binding arbitration with post-hearing briefs |
|
Discipline |
Just Cause with clear progressive discipline and meaningful union representation |
Just cause but progressive discipline is unclear and restrictions on union representation, also takes out “dignity and respect” from disciplinary action |
|
Postings and Job Bidding |
All bargaining unit jobs will be posted for at least seven days for bargaining unit priority, if qualifications equal, highest seniority (RGH) is awarded position, no continued prohibitions on transfers in order to keep nurses here |
3 days for job postings for bargaining unit priority, RRH seniority is used but CNO can determine who is most qualified, employees are prohibited from transferring in the first six months of employment or under discipline including a verbal warning |
| Floating |
Floating can only happen when low staffing is unanticipated and cannot leave a unit short staffed below their grid and must be done […] |
Bargaining Update: Some Progress Made But Admin Non-Responsive to Major Issues
Bargaining update: G1 nurses heard; improvements to ED incentive; administration gives some counter proposals, but dodges key issues; safety and security still at issue
G1 Nurses Win Pause on Disastrous Admission Change
As shared in the last bargaining update, a change was implemented to G1 Psych in September which led to patients being admitted without necessary information. This has included patients’ names, as well as medical information and legal paperwork necessary to hold them.
After confronting administration with several examples of unsafe patient care conditions created by this change, including correcting several misconceptions administration had about what was actually happening on the unit, we won an agreement to pause the new process until G1 nurses could meet with administrators to discuss a process for safer admissions.
Like with everything, it’s clear that when nurses are actually involved in the planning, the outcome will be better.
Improvement to ED incentive, but more work to be done
Yesterday morning (11/29), administration contacted us seeking to implement an incentive program to fill staffing holes in the ED. They planned to offer a bonus of $1200 (in addition to current SIP and OT rules) to any nurse who picked up at least 48 hours within four weeks.
Nurses in the ED have been stretched impossibly thin and the unit has been bleeding staff as burnout is at an all-time high. In the last year alone, the ED has lost over 30% of its permanent staff. No incentive program is going to fix that, when low base rates and chronically short staffing mean RGH cannot recruit and retain nurses. After surveying 42 ED nurses within 24 hours, the bargaining committee heard overwhelmingly that the bonus was not enough for the vast majority to pick up sufficient hours to fill the holes. Concerns were also raised about nurses who might become sick in the middle of the program and get no bonus despite working most of the hours.
In bargaining today, we won two improvements:
- Raising the total amount from $1200 to $1500 (moving the effective hourly bonus from $25/hour to $31.25/hour).
- Prorating the bonus by total hours picked up in the four week period, so the potential bonuses would be $375 for 12 hours picked up, $750 for 24 hours, $1125 for 36 hours, and $1500 for 48 hours.
This was the most the administration was willing to move on, so we accepted the improved program with the caveat that, from what we were hearing from ED nurses, it was unlikely to succeed in filling all the holes. We believe much more needs to be done, but hope that administration is starting to see that the solution is to put more resources into staff nurses, rather than (unsuccessfully) trying to fill holes with APPs or travelers.
First Tentative Agreement reached, but responses on wages, staffing, benefits not yet forthcoming
We reached an agreement with administration on a contract article regarding […]