Registered nurses at Alhambra Hospital Medical Center in Alhambra, Calif., voted overwhelmingly in favor of ratifying a new four-year contract on July 22, winning protections to improve patient safety and nurse retention, announced California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU). Nurses successfully settled this contract just two months after holding their first-ever strike in May. 

“In our new contract, we won language that includes having a resource nurse for help with our breaks and rest periods,” said Kevin Ly, RN in the telemetry unit. “A resource nurse is a huge help when we are short-staffed so we can have better RN-to-patient ratios to care for our patients.”

Highlights of the contract include: 

• Improvements to floating (Floating is a management practice where nurses are reassigned to units of the hospital where they do not normally work.)
• Improvements to health and safety
• Improvements to subcontracting language
• Improvements to flex-off language
• Staffing improvements with a pathway to a resource nurse
• Wage increases, including increased night differential
• No takeaways

The new contract covers the period Oct. 31, 2024, to Oct. 31, 2028.

“After bargaining for almost a year, we are happy to ratify a four-year contract that protects nurses and our patients,” said Farah Gerami, RN in the emergency department.

CNA represents more than 160 nurses at Alhambra Hospital Medical Center.

California Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the nation with more than 100,000 members in more than 200 facilities throughout California and more than 225,000 RNs nationwide.