Nurses reach new contract agreement with UC

The California Nurses Association announced on Monday that the 10,000 registered nurses at the University of California Medical Centers have ratified a new three-year contract with the university.

The contract was approved on Saturday after nurses at UC medical centers in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Davis and Irvine, as well as at student health centers in Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Berkeley and Merced, voted in favor of the agreement.

The contract, which expires in September 2010, includes a 6 percent across-the-board wage increase, continued pension and retiree health protection, and extra staff protection. The contract also allows the nurses to opt out of certain employer practices that the nurses found objectionable, such as the "wellness plan," a controversial cost-cutting effort, and "paid time off," a program that combined all paid time into one sector. Safety regarding patient care was also addressed by limiting "mandatory shift rotations," a practice which forced nurses to work a rotation of day and night, causing them to become overly fatigued.

Beth Kean, the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee’s UC director, said she believed the contract was a hard-won victory for the UC medical center nurses.

"We are very proud of our accomplishment “¦ we feel that it was due to our level of organization," she said.

Kean said that because both sides had their own separate objectives, the contract negotiations had taken 11 months and moved through all phases of mediation before the UC could offer a substantial contract.

"To be honest, it took nurses being very strong and insistent – frankly, the UC was very obstinate until the very end when the nurses were released and were prepared to strike," Kean said.

But Nicole Savickas, the coordinator for Human Resources and Labor Relations at the UC Office of the President, said that, though compromises were made on both sides, the UC was pleased to have finally reached an agreement with the registered nurses.

"Although there were a few concessions here and there, reaching an agreement was much more important. We are pleased to be able to provide nurses with high-quality health care," Savickas said.

Other nurses said that, despite the 11-month bargaining period, the contract had met their most important goals and would help solve problems such as high staff turnover.

"The most important thing in a public sector is a retirement benefit. Improvements in long-term pension and retirement will be a big plus for keeping experienced nurses in the UC system," said Liz Jacobs, a registered nurse and staff representative.

Jacobs added that the contract resolved major patient safety issues by eliminating mandatory shift rotation, a practice that contributed to a lack of alertness in registered nurses.

Other benefits of the contract include additional wage adjustments for the registered nurses at UC Irvine and UC San Diego, which are the lowest-paid medical centers, as well as wage increases of 8 percent at student health centers.

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