120 St. Louise Regional Hospital nurses to receive 26-percent
hike in pay
Gilroy – Local nurses must have behaved because Santa brought them a particularly nice gift this Christmas.
On Thursday, the California Nurses Association finalized a four-year joint contract that will affect 1,500 registered nurses at four Daughters of Charity hospitals in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
For Gilroy, that means 120 Saint Louise Regional Hospital RNs will receive a 26-percent wage hike over the life of the four-year contract, pension increases and a guaranteed 5:1 patient to nurse ratio. The contract will expire in June of 2009.
O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, Seton Medical Center in Daly City and St. Vincent Hospital in Los Angeles, were all a part of the agreement. The joint negotiations were a first for the four hospitals.
In the past the facilities negotiated and finalized their contracts independently. Although the agreements were drawn up cooperatively, the contracts had to be separately voted on and approved at each hospital before being finalized.
Saint Louise came to a tentative agreement on Dec. 15 and ratified the contract on Dec. 20 and Seton finalized their contract on Thursday night.
Steve Sharrer, vice president of human resources at Saint Louise, said he is pleased with the agreement and that it meets the needs of nurses, patients and the hospital.
The four hospitals had never conducted joint negotiations before because they didn’t have unified contract expiration dates and both Seton and Saint Louise were members of Catholic Health Care West in the past, said Corinne Comer, CNA chief negotiator and acute care director at the union’s Oakland-based headquarters.
The R.N.s were finally able to align the expiration dates and negotiate as a “united front,” enabling them to put up a stronger fight.
“They can present their issues together and they can act together,” Comer said. “When you have 1,500 you’re looking at a different fight, you’re toe to toe at that point.”
Comer said the nurses were satisfied with the “significant wage increase.”
To ensure that the hospitals enforce the state’s 5:1, patient to nurse ratio, the language was written into the contract.
“It’s on the books and we don’t want to rely on the Governor to enforce it,” Comer said.
Nurses at all four hospitals will see stricter restrictions on what’s called “unsafe floating” or assigning R.N.s to areas that are not their speciality. The contracts also will ensure that nurses who work evenings or nights will receive increased compensation.
