St. Joseph nurses reach tentative collective bargaining agreement
Registered nurses at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, along with nurses from St. Joseph Health System medical centers in Apple Valley and Petaluma, announced on Thursday a tentative settlement with hospital officials on a new collective bargaining agreement. Susan Johnson, a registered nurse in St. Joseph's labor and delivery unit, said, in a press release from the California Nurses Association, that language improvements under the new agreement will create safer staffing conditions for both nurses and patients.
Eureka Times Standard
RNs reach tentative deal with Petaluma Valley Hospital
PETALUMA — Registered nurses at Petaluma Valley Hospital and two other St. Joseph Health–affiliated facilities today reached a tentative accord with hospital officials on a new collective bargaining agreement, the California Nurses Association said. The Oakland-based nurses’ union, an affiliate of National Nurses United, said the agreement “will bring significant improvements in patient care protections and health care security for nurses.â€
North Bay Business Journal
Petaluma hospital nurses reach tentative contract agreement
The California Nurses Association, which represents about 170 nurses at Petaluma Valley Hospital, announced a tentative agreement Thursday with St. Joseph Health, which runs the hospital. CNA negotiators representing more than 900 union nurses at two other St. Joseph hospitals, St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, also reached tentative labor agreements. Nurses are expected to vote next week on whether or not to ratify the three-year agreement.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
RNs Reach Tentative Agreements at St. Joseph Hospitals in Apple Valley, Eureka and Petaluma
Registered nurses at three St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) medical centers have achieved a tentative settlement with hospital officials on a new collective bargaining agreement that nurses say will bring significant improvements in patient care protections and healthcare security for nurses. The agreement between nurse and hospital negotiators, reached late Wednesday night, must still be ratified by the RNs who will vote on the proposals in membership meetings expected to be held next week. The new contracts which cover more than 1,100 RNs expire on May 31, 2016.
California Nurses Association
Jun 6, 2013
A RAND Report on “Workplace Wellness†Is Quietly Buried for Five Months—Why?
Did you know that in the U.S. “Workplace Wellness†has become a $6 billion industry? That’s how much employers pay vendors who sell workplace wellness programs designed to encourage employees to lose weight, lower their cholesterol, or stop smoking.. Today, firms lay out an average of $521 per employee per year on ‘wellness incentives’ such as gift cards for employees who shed pounds. That is more than double the $260 they spent in 2009 according to a recent survey by Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health.
Health Beat
Social Security should be expanded, not cut
Fear-mongers and other critics of Social Security were silenced — momentarily — by the release last week of the annual trustees' report for the programs. The report showed not only that it's looking pretty good in the near term, but in the long term it's more important to the sustenance of millions of Americans than ever before. But policymakers and pundits have taken the wrong lesson from these findings. The argument they most often put forward is that Social Security is so important it must be "saved," typically by cutting benefits to bring its outflow in line with its income.
LA Times
Rough sailing ahead for health care reform, but it’s not our only option
You know another storm is brewing when Washington politicians start looking for somebody else to blame for problems they themselves created. That’s what happened recently at a Senate budget hearing when Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus unloaded on Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama’s health and human services secretary. He berated her for failing to adequately educate the public or competently implement the 2,000-plus page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. During the hearing, Baucus worried aloudabout “a huge train wreck coming down†if the Obama administration didn’t clean up its act. Other Democrats soon piled on.
The Bangor Daily News
This Week In America, June 3, 2013
Austerity is a Killer. Estimates put the number of additional suicides at 10,000 and up to a million extra cases of depression across Europe and the U.S. since austerity measures were imposed after the financial collapse of 2008. These findings were highlighted in a new book, The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, authored by economist David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu, and the subject of an interview on Democracy Now!
Weekly News
NNU and MNU Endorse Ed Markey for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts Special Election
CANTON, Mass — National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States, and its affiliate, the Massachusetts Nurses Association/NNU, announced today its endorsement of Congressman Ed Markey for U.S. Senate in the June 25 Massachusetts special election. “Congressman Markey is a champion of the issues that matter most to nurses: federal and state legislation to require safe RN-to-patient staffing limits for nurses in acute care hospitals, universal single-payer health care, a robust social insurance program and a financial transaction tax on Wall Street trades that would generate hundreds of billions of dollars every year,†said MNA/NNU President, Donna Kelly-Williams, RN.
Massachusetts Nurses Association/NNU
May 30, 2013
First Maine RN Leader Cokie Giles is Elected to National Nurses Union Presidency
Cokie Giles, RN, president of the Maine State Nurses Association (MSNA) and a working nurse at the endoscopy clinic at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, has been elected as one of the four presidents of National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), one of the largest and fastest growing direct-care RN unions in the United States. Maine has been affiliated with the NNOC since 2006.
Maine State Nurses Association/NNOC/NNU
May 30, 2013