Eleven hours after coming to the table, we were unable to agree to a deal with management. While we have been able to close out a number of issues, we are still far apart on multiple important topics. We demand a fair contract that improves workplace safety for nurses, ensures that there is a plan in place to provide meal and rest break coverage for all nurses, and addresses ongoing issues with low census and call shifts.

The contract expires today 1/31/25, and we need the support of ALL the nurses at St. Clare’s to show management that we are standing in solidarity and demanding a fair contract. Remember to wear your “I Support My Bargaining Team Stickers” and wear your WSNA Blue on bargaining days and Blue Fridays!!

 Keep reading for more details on how day 4 went.

Issues that Need to be Resolved

• Meal and Rest Break Coverage: The employer has agreed (with the law) that all nurses need to get their meal and rest breaks, and that “break buddies” is not an acceptable answer to covering meal and rest breaks. Yet, they refuse to provide a solution to the problem or agree to the solutions we have proposed. We proposed that nurses could pick up full or partial shifts through the Hospital Resource Pool as “Break Relief Nurses”. This is a commonsense solution that would supplement current procedures and ensure that nurses can get all their much deserved, legally required meal and rest breaks while not adding additional staff.
• Workplace Violence Prevention: The nurses at St. Clare deserve to feel safe at work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That includes making sure people in the hospital are supposed to be there. We have proposed that ALL visitors be checked in and given a sticker regardless of the time of day – something that was agreed upon at SJMC. Management said that was impossible to implement at St. Clare’s. We counter proposed that the hospital instead agrees to install card swipe locked doors in all units by the end of the contract. Something that management also agreed to at St. Joe’s
• Low Census: A continuous point of contention in the hospital is how low census has been handled. Nurses have been incorrectly low censused and incorrect information from central staffing has led to confusion. We have proposed to move control of the low census roster to the units, and to change low census to be date-based instead of hours based. This will reduce the impact to nurses who may be low censused multiple times in a pay period due to having the fewest low census hours.
• LPN Experience Credit: At St. Joe’s, management proposed to us that nurses with LPN experience be given 1:1 credit for their years worked in acute care as an LPN moving forward. We accepted that proposal. Now St. Clare’s is having second thoughts and believe this to be unfair. We believe that LPN’s deserve to be credited fairly for their experience and that this would create a situation in which no nurse with LPN experience would choose to work at St. Clare’s over St. Joe’s.

There is Good News

We were able to come to agreement on several important issues

• Charge Nurse Pay: We have agreed that charge nurses will see an increase in premium pay to $3.50/hour
• Rest Between Shifts: We were able to strengthen the language for Rest Between Shifts premium so that nurses who are put on low census/standby will no longer be exempted from receiving RBS on their next shift
• Equity Justice Committee: We are very excited to announce the creation of the Equity Justice Committee. This committee, made up of equal parts management and union nurses, will address systemic issues of inequity and social justice that affect our nurses, our patients, and our community.

Next Steps

We meet with management to bargain again on 2/5/25 location TBD. We need your support. Come observe negotiations and see the process in person. Let’s show management that we are united in our demands. Reach out to your nurse representative at JRichardson@WSNA.org to arrange to come observe!