Worcester Strike Over: Nurses Vote 358-5!
Nyack Nurses Ratify Contract as Well!
Message from MNA Director of Public Communications:
Yesterday afternoon, at approximately 4:50 p.m., hundreds of nurses from the
St. Vincent Hospital/Worcester Medical Center bargaining unit of the
Massachusetts Nurses Association completed their last ceremonial picket-lap
around Worcester Medical Center and put down their picket signs, officially
ending their historic 49-day strike. The last walk around the building
followed the announcement by St. Vincent Nurses' co-chair Anne Spellane of
the overwhelming vote tally in favor of ratification.
Below is a press release about the new contract and the ratification vote. At
this time, we at the MNA would like to extend our sincere thanks to each and
every nurse, allied health professional, labor union member, politician and
citizen supporter who stood with us, walked with us, wrote letters of support
to and for us. This victory is a victory for all of you who in any way
joined the nurses' in this struggle. We only wish we had a videotape of the
celebration the nurses held last night following the ratification vote. The
joy in the room was palpable, and anyone watching these nurses couldn't help
but be moved by how empowered and unified they are coming out of this
incredible victory.
P R E S S R E L E A S E
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 2000
Contact: David Schildmeier - (781) 821-4625 x717 or (508) 426-1655 (Pager)
or 781-249-0430
St. Vincent Hospital RNs Vote to Ratify Three-year Contract with Tenet Ending
49-Day Strike
Vote Ends More Than Two-Year Struggle by RNs to Negotiate Their First
Contract to Improve Working Conditions, Boost Salaries and Provide Voice in
Decisions Around Patient Care
WORCESTER, Mass. - The historic 49-day strike by 615 registered nurses at St.
Vincent Hospital/Worcester Medical Center officially ended today with a vote
of 358 - 5 by the rank and file membership in favor of their first union
contract with Tenet Health Care. The vote follows a dramatic conclusion of
talks at the 51st negotiating session hosted by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and
Congressman James McGovern on May 11, 2000 in the offices of Sen. Kennedy in
Washington, D.C.
While the nurses' contract contains traditional provisions for seniority and
health insurance benefits, grievance and arbitration procedures, it also
contains a number of provisions the nurses had sought when they first decided
to organize their union-specifically, strong language that gives them a voice
in decisions related to patient care and their nursing practice. The pact,
which will run from Jan. 1, 2000 - Jan. 1, 2003, includes strict limits on
mandatory overtime, provides nurses with a voice in decisions around staffing
and nursing practice issues, calls for the phase out of a controversial flex
time policy, and provides the nurses with a protected voice and binding
arbitration regarding issues related to their move into the new Worcester
Medical Center facility. The contract guarantees a $1.50 per hour raise for
all nurses in the first year of the contract, places nurses on a 13-step
salary scale, and grants a 4% across the board pay hike in the second year of
the contract.
"With this vote, our strike is officially ended and we begin the process of
working with Tenet management to begin a new era in health care at Worcester
Medical Center," said Anne Spellane, co-chair of nurses' bargaining unit.
"This contract was three years in the making, beginning with our campaign to
organize a union at St. Vincent Hospital in 1997, and continuing through the
two-year process to reach this agreement following our successful vote to
establish this union in 1998. Our goal throughout this long process was to
provide nurses with strong and protected voice in all decisions related to
our employment and our nursing practice. This contract guarantees us that
voice."
According to Debra Rigiero, co-chair of the bargaining unit, "The biggest
winner in this long struggle are the patients of St. Vincent Hospital and
Worcester Medical Center, who will now be assured care by registered nurses
with the ability to advocate on their behalf to ensure the highest standards
of nursing practice."
According to Julie Pinkham, Director of Labor Relations for the Massachusetts
Nurses Association, which represents the St. Vincent nurses' bargaining unit,
as well as nurses at 85 different health care facilities across the
Commonwealth, "These nurses have not only negotiated a first contract, they
have negotiated an incredibly strong first contract. This agreement measures
up to the standards of any of our seasoned contracts. Their success in these
negotiations is a direct result to the courage of these nurses and their
willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice to achieve their goals. In
particular, the language surrounding this issue of mandatory overtime should
be a flash point for nurses across the state and country - this language
should be a minimum standard for all nurses and the patients they care for.
Below is a summary of key provisions of the contract:
Mandatory Overtime
The hospital, which had been insisting on the need for the right to be able
to mandate 16-hour shifts since the strike began on March 31, 2000, agreed on
May 11 to the strict limits on mandatory overtime sought by the nurses. The
overtime language in the new contract limits the amount of mandatory overtime
assigned to a nurse to no more than 4 hours, and limits the amount of times a
nurse can be assigned overtime to 8 times per year (twice each quarter).
Most important of all, the mandatory overtime language includes a landmark
provision, which grants every nurse the right to refuse a mandatory overtime
assignment if he or she feels to fatigued or ill to work safely. While this
right has been granted to nurses through an arbitration decision at another
hospital and may be the implicit right of nurses under their nursing license,
to our knowledge, this is the first contract in the country to include
language that explicitly grants nurses the right to refuse mandatory overtime
under such circumstances.
The language calls upon the hospital to exercise its best effort to maintain
full staffing in order to prevent the need for mandatory overtime, and it
requires the hospital to carefully document each and every instance of
mandatory overtime, and to review those occurrences with a staffing committee
made up of unionized nurses and management. The goal of this process is to
limit the use of mandatory overtime and develop solutions to correct
conditions, such as inadequate staffing, that contribute to it. If the two
sides cannot agree on problems that arise, the language calls for the issues
to be presented for expedited arbitration.
"Our biggest concern was that this hospital would use mandatory overtime as a
mechanism to staff the facility," said Sandy Ellis, member of the negotiating
team and a spokesperson for the nurses' bargaining unit. "This language not
only provides strict limits on the amount of overtime assigned, but also
provides a rigorous process for ensuring that management address underlying
staffing issues that cause mandatory overtime."
Safe Staffing Language
To address the nurses' long-term concerns about nurse staffing levels under
Tenet management, the new contract includes language that provides nurses
with a voice in staffing decisions and the power to question unsafe staffing
practices.
The contract states that "the hospital will ensure safe registered nurse
staffing levels on all shifts within each patient care area." It also
establishes a staffing committee made up of union nurses and hospital
managers who will meet on a monthly basis to review staffing issues. This
committee has the power to make recommendations on staffing issues to the
Vice President of Clinical Services. If the nurses believe the hospital is
not meeting its mandate to ensure safe registered nurse staffing levels, the
nurses will have the right to take their concerns to an independent third
party through the contract's grievance and arbitration procedures.
Protections Regarding Inappropriate "Floating"
"Floating" is a term that refers to a process of moving nurses from unit to
unit to cover for staffing shortages in a particular area. As hospitals cut
back their staffing levels, many have engaged in inappropriate floating
practices where nurses are shifted to floors or departments without proper
orientation, or are assigned patients for whom they lack the skills or
experience to provide adequate care.
The St. Vincent Hospital nurses' contract regulates floating by ensuring that
nurses are properly oriented to the floor they are assigned when floated. It
also gives the nurse the right to refuse sole responsibility for a patient
assignment that he/she feels unprepared to properly care for that patient.
Delegation to Unlicensed Personnel
The contract includes specific protections the nurses sought to prevent them
from having to delegate nursing activities to unlicensed assistive personnel
(UAP). As hospitals have become more short staffed, many administrators have
attempted to deliver nursing care by replacing nurses with unlicensed
personnel and assigning those personnel duties traditionally performed by
nurses. These practices have met with strong opposition from the nursing
community in recent years. With the prospect of a looming nursing shortage,
the danger exists that these practices would be employed in lieu of
recruiting needed nursing staff.
The nurses have successfully negotiated a provision governing the "delegation
of nursing activities," which gives the nurse the power to decide if, when
and to whom they will delegate any nursing activity. This language, which has
been included in a number of MNA contracts in recent years, guarantees
patients that only nurses will decide how their care is delivered, as well as
provides a roadblock to administration attempts to implement staffing plans
that replace registered nurses with lesser qualified caregivers.
"Taken together, our staffing, mandatory overtime, floating and delegation
provisions provide the nurses of St. Vincent Hospital with a series of
protections that allow them to protect the integrity of their practice and
take steps to ensure our patients access to appropriate nursing care," said
Rigiero.
Salary and Health Insurance Benefits
The contract guarantees a $1.50 per hour raise for all nurses in the first
year of the contract, places nurses on a 13-step salary scale, and grants a
4% across-the-board pay hike in the second year of the contract. The nurses'
salary scale will be frozen for the first two years of the contract, but in
the third year, nurses will begin to advance to the next step on the scale,
granting them an additional 3% increase. Also in the third year, an
additional 14th step will be added to the scale. The contract calls for a
salary re-opener 60 days prior to the end of the contract's third year to
negotiate an additional salary increase for the third year of the contract.
To help increase the pool of per diem nurses at the facility (a key to
preventing mandatory overtime), the contract raises the per diem rate paid to
nurses to make it competitive with area hospitals. Specifically, the contract
allows Tenet to offer per diems rates up to 5% higher than those offered at
UMass/Memorial Health Care.
The contract calls for the hospital to provide nurses with access to its
flexible benefits program, which includes access to its health and dental
insurance plans, with Tenet picking up 90 % of the premiums in the first
year, 85% in the second year and 80% in the third year. Nurses who choose to,
may also be eligible to access disability and life insurance paid for by the
hospital.
The contract also offers all nurses $25,000 of insurance coverage for
work-related occurrence of HIV and Hepatitis C.
Protection on Issues Related to Move to Worcester Medical Center
As the nurses were preparing to strike, the hospital was making plans to move
most of its patient care services from the St. Vincent Hospital facility to
the newly built $215 million Worcester Medical Center. The hospital actually
moved its operations two days after the strike began on April 3, 2000.
Throughout the two-year process of negotiating their contract, the nurses had
been seeking information from Tenet concerning the working conditions for the
nurses in the new facility. Tenet's failure to provide that information was
the subject of unfair labor practice charges filed by the union, and
developing a process to resolve issues related to the move has remained a
sticking point to the negotiations.
The nurses' contract provides both sides with a 60-day period to negotiate
these issues, after the nurses have returned to work. In the event that the
nurses and management fail to reach agreement on any issues in that period,
the unresolved issues shall be submitted to binding arbitration.
Back-to-Work Agreement
The contract provides a process to govern the return to work of the striking
nurses. Under the agreement, the parties agree to begin immediate
negotiations over issues concerning the nurses' return to work, returning all
the striking nurses back to their positions prior to June 11, 2000.
The hospital also agreed to pay the nurses' costs for health and dental
insurance benefits, which had been cut once the strike began.
"The entire community should share in this celebration, and be proud of what
we have accomplished through this process," Ellis said. "The nurses owe a
huge debt of gratitude to our Mayor and City Council, to our legislative
delegation, to the entire labor community of greater Worcester, to all the
community groups who joined our cause, and most importantly, to each and
every citizen who honked their horns, flashed their lights, wore a blue
ribbon, visited our picket line, wrote letters to the editor or to Tenet and
donated to our strike fund."
# # #
David Schildmeier
Director of Public Communications
Massachusetts Nurses Association
800-882-2056 x717
508-426-1655 (pager)