GILROY
– Nurses at Saint Louise Regional Hospital reached a tentative
contract agreement Wednesday to receive an increase in wages and
improve a retirement plan.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Nurses at Saint Louise Regional Hospital reached a tentative contract agreement Wednesday to receive an increase in wages and improve a retirement plan.
The nurses union, California Nurses Association, completed negotiations with the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, who runs the hospital, to improve the nurses’ retirement package and gain a 12 percent wage increase over the next two years.
Saint Louise’s 100 nurses will meet next Tuesday to vote on and likely approve the contract.
“All the terms and issues have been agreed to,” said Corinne Comer, acute care director for the CNA. “Now all the nurses will need to do is ratify the contract.”
The first pay increase will take effect immediately after the contracts are signed. After two years, a nurse with five years’ experience would earn about $33.08 an hour, while a nurse with 20 years’ experience would earn about $44.72 an hour. Most nurses do not work full time, Comer said.
The pension plan agreed upon will increase the amount of salary retained after retirement by about 16 percent. The pension is based on the number of years worked. A 65-year-old retiree who has been a nurse for 30 years will now retain 40 percent of his or her salary, whereas under the old contract that same nurse retained 34 percent, Comer said.
“(The CNA) thinks the pension rewards the nurses for their service and begins to address the long-term problem of poor pensions in a female-dominated profession,” Comer said. “It’s a dramatic improvement in the existing benefits at that hospital.”
The new contract also will include a “patient protection” requirement preventing Saint Louise from hiring licensed vocational nurses in place of registered nurses. LVNs are certified nurses with a lower level of training than RNs. Therefore, an RN must be present to oversee any patient assessments or help out with intravenous medications that need to be administered.
Lower registered-nurse-to-patient ratios will be implemented by the state in January 2004, leading some registered nurses to fear that licensed vocational nurses would be hired in their place.
The details of the contract are similar to those reached between nurses and the Catholic Healthcare West hospital chain, which owned Saint Louise until February 2002.
