BNA Daily Labor Report, November 3, 2009

Catholic Healthcare West and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee late October 30 reached agreement on new four-year contracts for some 12,000 registered nurses at 32 facilities in California and Nevada that include “historic and industry leading language” assuring that nurses will receive education and equipment to deal with the H1N1 flu and other pandemics, the union announced November 2.

The tentative agreements would create a new joint Pandemic Task Force, which includes representatives of the union and the hospital chain, to monitor systemwide preparedness for and set enforceable “uniform standards on full implementation of federal, state, and local guidelines,” according to CNA/NNOC. In addition, the task force would monitor the availability of safety protective equipment such as N95 respirator masks, communication and training policies for all hospital workers, and the consideration of off-site emergency triage and treatment.

According to CHW, the contracts would cover measures the health care system already has in place to prepare and respond to the H1N1 pandemic, including providing information, training, and personal protective equipment. CNA/NNOC-represented nurses now will have a collaborative voice in monitoring these measures, a CHW statement said.

CHW spokeswoman Jill Dryer told BNA November 2 that Catholic Healthcare West has been “focused on H1N1 for some time,” and has been following federal and state guidelines.

Catholic Healthcare West and its hospitals “have been following federal and state guidelines for the H1N1 pandemic,” said Robert Wiebe, CHW's senior vice president/chief medical officer. “Since the pandemic was declared last spring, we have been taking measures to ensure the health and safety of our patients, employees, and communities. We are pleased to have the CNA's full collaboration in furthering our efforts.”

CNA/NNOC had planned a one-day strike for October 30 at 34 hospitals owned by CHW, Daughters of Charity System, and Saint Joseph Health Systems to protest what the union said was “poor readiness” to confront the flu pandemic (200 DLR A-10, 10/20/09). The union called off the strike as the parties returned to contract negotiations October 26 with the help of a federal mediator (208 DLR A-11, 10/30/09).

Negotiations to Resume With Other Chains

CNA/NNOC is scheduled to resume negotiations soon with the other hospital chains, where contracts expired June 30 for an additional 4,000 nurses, according to Jill Furillo, CNA/NNOC's director of its Catholic facilities division. She added that the union will attempt to negotiate the same H1N1 provisions for nurses at those facilities.

Furillo told BNA November 2 that none of the hospitals in California was prepared for a pandemic, which is why the nurses threatened to strike over the issue. Citing a survey CNA conducted in August, Furillo said most of the hospitals were not telling the nurses that the N95 masks should only be used one time, and infected patients were not being properly isolated so they were not in contact with the at-risk population (169 DLR A-11, 9/3/09).

“With this historic agreement, we are charting a new course for limiting the spread of not only swine flu but all other dangerous pandemics that are yet to come,” Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA/NNOC, said in a statement. “We are pleased that Catholic Healthcare West is joining with us to set the highest possible hospital safeguards for patients and nurses and creating an innovative model that every hospital in America should follow.”

First Master Contract Negotiated in California

The H1N1 agreement is contained in the first master contract between CNA/NNOC and CHW for nurses at 28 facilities throughout California. Nurses previously had been covered by two separate master contracts - one in Northern California (138 DLR A-14, 7/20/05) and a separate one in Southern California (174 DLR A-2, 9/10/07). In the last negotiations, Dryer said, the parties agreed to negotiate a single contract in 2009 covering all the CNA-represented CHW hospitals throughout California.

Furillo added that the master contract also would cover two hospitals in Bakersfield and a few facilities organized since the sides agreed to negotiate a single contract.

In addition, the parties negotiated a first master contract for some 1,000 nurses at three Saint Rose Dominican Hospitals in southern Nevada, where CNA/NNOC won representation in April (62 DLR A-7, 4/3/09).

The parties also agreed to extend a four-year contract, negotiated in September 2008, for some 500 nurses at Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nevada, where CNA/NNOC won a December 2007 election to represent the nurses (236 DLR A-8, 12/10/07). That contract, which was set to expire June 30, 2012, would be extended for a year to expire at the same time as the other contracts, Dryer said.

According to Furillo, all three contracts are linked, with the Nevada contracts becoming addendum to the master California contract. She said in 2013, when all three contracts expire, the union will be bargaining for one master contract covering all nurses at CHW facilities in California and Nevada.

Other Provisions of H1N1 Agreement

According to CNA/NNOC, all the contracts include the following provisions involving the H1N1 agreement:

• The employer would agree at each facility to comply with all federal, state, and local laws and regulations to limit the spread of communicable diseases, such as isolating patients with H1N1 symptoms. CNA/NNOC said including the guidelines in the contracts gives them the added force of contract law.
• The contracts would provide assurance that RNs are provided appropriate equipment and attire, such as single-use, N95 respirator masks when available.
• Contract language would guarantee that CHW provides information and training for nurses on communicable diseases to which they may have been exposed.

Wage Increases of 20 Percent

In addition to the H1N1 agreement, the contracts, if ratified, would provide wage increases of 20 percent over four years, according to CHW's Dryer, who declined to break out the increases.

According to Furillo, the agreements call for a retroactive wage increase that would be paid in a lump-sum of $200 for full-time nurses and $100 for part-time nurses. She explained that employees received wage increases at different times in 2009 because there were several different contracts, so the parties decided to give everyone the lump-sum retroactive pay.

The contracts would provide across-the-board wage increases of 5 percent in each year, Furillo said. The first increase of 2 percent would be payable upon ratification, followed by 2 percent in April 2010, and 1 percent in June 2010. In the second contract year, wage increases of 2 percent would be payable in October 2010 and April 2011, followed by 1 percent in June 2011. In the last two years, nurses would receive increases of 2 percent in October of each year and 3 percent in April of each year, she said.

The tentative contracts include many of the same provisions on patient care issues, continuing education leave, tuition reimbursement and successor language, among others, according to a summary prepared by CNA/NNOC. Furillo stressed, however, that no local provision that is more generous than one contained in the master agreement would be reduced. For example, she said, the master contract would provide that nurses could take up to 40 hours paid leave per year for continuing education classes. In several hospitals where nurses currently are allowed to take up to 48 hours or 64 hours, that number of hours would be maintained.

Furillo added that because of differing laws in California and Nevada, some provisions, including those involving staffing, had to be addressed according to the specific law in the state.

While no date for ratification has yet been scheduled, Furillo said she expects the votes to take place by early the week of November 9. The CNA/NNOC bargaining committee is unanimously recommending ratification.