Dear fellow nurses,

As we wrote on Thursday after a long night of bargaining with management, despite reaching agreement on many items we have been unable to reach an overall deal. In short, we feel that the overall package management offered does not reflect the major sacrifices that we have made this last year, including putting *our* lives on the line, holding the hands of our dying patients when their family members could not be, and possibly subjecting our own families to risks.

PHSW’s competitors have rewarded their nurses during this past year, but Management has not even verbally acknowledged the year we’ve had. Our CNO has been silent - the chief nurse in the Hospital can’t even speak up to tell us that we are valued and respected. We are left to determine how much the Hospital values us by looking at its proposals. We are deeply disappointed in management’s email of Friday, which we believe has myriad misrepresentations and implies that management offered more than it did.

• To be perfectly clear, the across-the-board raises that management offered were not 4.5% - that figure includes an average of step raises which we’ve already won in previous contracts.
• Despite telling us how important it is that PeaceHealth operate on a systemwide basis, Management insists on sticking to CES pay of $18 an hour (with a new tier of CES pay of $25 that seems unlikely to ever be posted). We proposed other incentive pay that already exists in the PeaceHealth system (in nearby St. John’s); Management rejected this without explanation.
• We proposed an increase to night shift differential and that night differential be applied to all hours worked. Management did increase the differential – by one nickel – and said that PeaceHealth always only pays for a maximum of 8 hours of night differential. We pointed out that at RiverBend, nurses get nearly $2/hour more in night diff than we do, and we would take that for 8 hours. Management rejected our proposal without explanation.

We want to come to a contract, but one that reflects our value to our Hospital and one that is fair, in line with what other local nurses receive, and that acknowledges the year we have endured.

In solidarity,

Your PHSW union bargaining team

Didi Gray; Local unit co-chair, Birth Center
Jonathan Chase; Local Unit co-chair; Tower 7
Shanta Gervickas; Observation Unit
Dawn Marick; Resource
Deb Krenzler; Short Stay Surgery
Melissa Smithdeal; MoJo 2
Mark Bolen; ICU
Erin Irwin; PCU
Gretchen Ruff; OR
Erica Ostenson; MoJo 4

Questions? Contact WSNA Nurse Organizer Ryan Rosenkranz at rrosenkranz@wsna.org.