Local 5058 and 5138 Important Update
The Local Executive Boards want to update all of you on the meeting with management regarding a proposal for shift differentials and on call pay, which they finally sent us in writing yesterday. We are not impressed with their proposal so far, but there will be more conversation, and we will likely be making a counterproposal.
The LEB would like to hear from everyone via email what you think about what they are putting forward. Also, please keep applying pressure with your managers, and if you have support from the doctors in your department tell them to take this up their chain of command as well. Tell them nurses deserve better than a giant hospital corporation trying to rip us off. Make this as uncomfortable for management as possible.
Based on our conversation with management this week, here’s the gist of their proposal: mandatory on call pay would be increased to $10/hr for certain (procedural) departments and $6/hr for others (eg NICU). When asked why the 2 tiers, management essentially said they don’t think they need to spend the money to retain staff in the non-procedural departments. Shift differentials would also go up slightly, but the full increase wouldn’t even happen until 2026, which is after the current contract expires anyway. They are proposing a small weekend differential that also wouldn’t go into full effect until 2026.
In exchange for this “generous” offer, they would guarantee at least 3 hours of on call pay instead of 2 but would stop paying for travel time. They also want to take back the 3-hour minimum for any additional call ins per shift, so you would only get the 3-hour minimum for the first call in, and then the next is actual time worked. Overall, this sounds designed to trick us into helping the hospital take a few dollars out of our pockets and put it into bonuses for its wealthy executives.
They would also want us to agree to extend the contract by 12 months, meaning another year that we won’t have all the tools at our disposal to fight back on the issues that matter most, like unsafe staffing. It would make it harder to address other problems we’ve been having with pay, like the need for a critical shift bonus and the disgusting approach they’ve had to performance evals the last 2 years. So to reiterate, it is putting it lightly to say we are not impressed so far.
We look forward to hearing from members like you. Please email the LEB at:
JSMC local5058@hpae.org
SOMC local5138@hpae.org
In Solidarity,
Local 5138 and 5058 Executive Boards