LAKEPORT, Calif. – A week before its union-represented nurses were set to go out on another one-day strike, Sutter Lakeside Hospital has reached a tentative agreement on a new collective bargaining contract with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United.
According to reports from Sutter Lakeside and the union, negotiations on Wednesday night led to an early Thursday morning agreement after hospital officials withdrew all concession proposals.
“Our nurses play an integral role in providing patients in our community with quality care,” said hospital Chief Administrative Officer Siri Nelson. “We are very pleased to bring closure to this process and to reach agreement on a new contract for our nurses.”
Carrie Roth, a medical surgical registered nurse at the hospital and a member of the CNA nurse bargaining team, called the tentative agreement “a major victory” both for nurses and patients in Lake County.
She added, “Our new contract enhances our ability to provide our patients with the care they deserve.”
California Nurses Association/National Nurses United represents 120 registered nurses at Sutter Lakeside Hospital.
Roth said Sutter Lakeside's nurses will meet on Monday, June 11, to ratify the new contract.
On Monday the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United had announced that the nurses they represented at several hospital around Northern California – including Sutter Lakeside – were preparing to walk out on June 13.
However, once the agreement at Sutter Lakeside was reached Thursday, the union withdrew its official notice of intent to hold the one-day strike in Lakeport on June 13. The union said a strike at other Bay Area Sutter hospitals is still set to go forward.
Sutter Lakeside nurses had previously participated in a one-day strike on May 1, as Lake County News has reported.
During that one-day walkout, Roth had told Lake County News that Sutter Lakeside's nurses were more united than ever, and determined to continue working on settling contract negotiations.
Sutter Lakeside's withdrawal of concessions “provides a significant contrast with other Sutter Bay Area hospitals where corporate executives are demanding more than 100 sweeping concessions that would erode patient care conditions and RN standards,” the union said in a Thursday afternoon written statement.
Roth said there were some small takeaways but they were smaller than what the hospital originally sought.
She said it came down to give and take between the bargaining teams.
“We're realized we have an obligation to the community and our patients,” and so they stuck it out to come to an agreement, Roth said.
“It's been a long haul,” she said, with the nurses' original contract ending in 2010.
She said the nurses and hospital will have to go back to the table to begin work on a new contract in June 2014.
For now, however, Roth said the nurses are happy and ready to get back to work caring for their patients.
Sutter Lakeside did not reveal any of the details concerning the tentative agreement or contract negotiations, which it said will be forthcoming upon ratification of the contract.
California Nurses Association/National Nurses United did offer some basic details of the agreement, which the union said includes new patient care protections, enhanced autonomy of charge RNs to utilize independent professional judgment in accepting patient assignments – including meal and break coverage – and workplace violence protections.
There also are to be modest wage improvements – including a new pay scale with additional pay steps with a new 20-year longevity step – and layoff and severance protection and compensation, the union said.
Other points the union said are included in the tentative agreement are enhanced daily cancellation language that considers the severity of patients’ illnesses, and new admissions, prior to canceling RNs from their shift; improved just cause/disciplinary action language and protection for RNs; new language that allows charge nurses to carry out their patient advocacy roles with full union protections; and improved leave of absence policies relating to medical, family care, military and professional leaves.
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