The Registered Nurses Professional Association (RNPA) announced on Christmas Eve it had reached a tentative agreement with Santa Clara County on a new multi-year contract for nurses in the county hospital system.
In a statement, the union said the new contract, if approved by members in January, will “implement the competitive wages, hours and safe working conditions nurses fought for months to win.” The ratification voting will take place Jan. 3-12.
In a document sent by the union to its members Dec. 24, the new agreement provides 3 percent wage increases per year for four years, plus a 4 percent across-the-board “realignment” increase the first year, and an additional 1 percent realignment increase the second year. The new contract also increases night, weekend and other pay differentials.
The new agreement will cover more than 3,000 nurses working in the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System, including St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and DePaul Health Clinic in Morgan Hill. General membership meetings were scheduled Dec. 30 and Jan. 2 at the hospitals to explain details of the agreement.
The announcement came less than two days after the union received overwhelming support from its members for a strike if the negotiations failed to reach an agreement.
“The new agreement helps close the pay and working conditions gap between county health facilities and local private hospitals and keeps experienced nurses serving county patients,” union leadership said in a Dec. 24 statement. The union said the agreement was reached in a late-night negotiating session Dec. 23.
“Nurses showed our unity and were willing to strike to make sure county leaders did the right thing by demonstrating they value patient care and respect nurses,” said Debbie Chang, RNPA president and Valley Medical Center RN. “Under our new contract we look forward to a new partnership with the county and continuing to deliver the highest-quality care to our patients.”
The new contract with Santa Clara County will cover RNPA nurses for the next four years. RNPA nurses’s previous contract with the county expired Oct. 20. The two parties had been in negotiations since late summer.
The tentative agreement with the nurses still leaves Santa Clara County with a lingering labor dispute with its biggest union, representing more than 12,000 employees. Tensions with both unions had heated up in mid-December, as both contract disputes took turns for the worse.
The RNPA voted Dec. 22 to authorize a strike if its negotiations failed to reach an agreement. Two days earlier, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521 announced it had pulled out of mediation sessions after several weeks, claiming county negotiators weren’t dealing with vacancy and retention issues.
In an interview with this newspaper on Dec. 20, County Executive Jeff Smith said he remained optimistic that the contract dispute with the nurses would be resolved soon, but foresaw a more difficult path ahead in the SEIU contract talks.
“We were disappointed that [the SEIU] terminated mediation,” Smith said. “We felt we were making progress.”
Smith said the county is prepared to offer its workers a $1,000 “ratification bonus” if their unions ratify new contracts. He said any new agreements on salaries would not be retroactive to the date the old contracts expired.
SEIU leaders said they would voluntarily commit to refrain from calling a strike at least until Jan. 10.
As for the nurses, the county executive said, ”I think we should be able to get to a contract agreement.”
The RNPA announced Dec. 23 that 94 percent of votes cast over two weeks from 65 percent of its membership favored a strike if necessary.
“The powerful statement gives RNPA’s member bargaining committee authorization to call a strike if conditions at the bargaining table demand it,” the union said in a statement.
“Nurses like me serve the county’s vulnerable patients but under conditions that make it challenging to give the highest-quality care and attention,” said Joshua Lauro, a registered nurse in the Emergency Department at Valley Medical Center.
“We work long hours in public hospitals, clinics and custody facilities that are chronically understaffed. Uncompetitive pay and benefits drive many of our most experienced nurses to local private hospitals.”
The SEIU represents more than half of the county’s 22,000-member workforce, but claims that they account for barely a third of the county payroll.
“Rank-and-file members call on the Board of Supervisors to justify offering 6 percent raises to lowest-paid workers and 11 percent to managers over the next two years while county claims financial hardship,” the union said in a statement released Dec. 18.
After weeks of voluntary mediation between the county and the SEIU, the workers’ bargaining team ended the mediation talks after they said the Board of Supervisors refused to address a “widespread vacancy and retention crisis” in county government.
“Jeff Smith, under the direction of the Board of Supervisors, has for months ridiculed and undermined the efforts of frontline workers to reach an equitable agreement that puts forth long-term solutions to the staffing crisis impacting our residents’ abilities to obtain critical services,” said Janet Diaz, a business services clerk at Valley Medical Center and Santa Clara County Chapter SEIU president. “The county’s offer to its management employees contradicts Smith’s claims that the board must offer so little to frontline workers because that is necessary to reach ‘a positive and sustainable resolution that protects the stability of the county budget.’ “
Diaz said the county’s bargaining stance is not about sustainability. “It’s about a total lack of respect for the county’s lowest-paid workers and for the residents who don’t get the level of service they need because of the high number of vacancies that result from inadequate pay.”
Smith said county vacancy rates are comparable with other local governments.
The SEIU also expressed concern about raises the county has settled on with its management employees.
On Dec. 4, the county announced an offer to management employees that would increase pay by 6 percent in 2019, 5 percent in 2020, and 3 percent per year thereafter.
The county’s “last, best, and final offer” to employees represented by SEIU Local 521 was 3 percent per year for the same five-year period.
“The SEIU-represented workers are disproportionately women and people of color. Denying equity to the SEIU workers will only exacerbate the economic divide that already exists in our community,” said Riko Mendez, SEIU Local 521 chief elected officer, in a statement.
Diaz said that SEIU is “willing to continue negotiations to reach a fair agreement on the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.” But she added that changes at the newly acquired hospitals remain unresolved.
