Three-year pact with Prime Healthcare Services covers 300 nurses

Registered nurses at West Anaheim Medical Center in Anaheim, Calif. are celebrating their first-ever tentative collective bargaining agreement that they say will greatly improve their ability to provide and advocate for safe patient care, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) announced today. Ratification of the contract will take place next week.
 
“This is really historic. We are really happy with the results for this first contract,” said Emma Chirtes, a 13-year West Anaheim RN working in the cardiac catheterization lab and chair of the nurse bargaining team. “This contract will definitely improve patient care because it will improve RN retention. If you have happy nurses, you will have happy patients.”
 
The three-year pact covers 300 RNs at West Anaheim and highlights include many provisions that are standard among CNA contracts:

• Provisions for safe patient handling and safe staffing. The contract includes measures to assure the hospital provides adequate personnel to ensure safe patient handling and reduce RN injuries—as well as enforceable language to assure nurses can take meal and rest breaks without leaving patient care areas understaffed. California’s safe staffing ratio laws are written into the contract.
• Economic gains in line with other CNA contracts. The contract eliminates the old merit pay system and establishes a fair wage grid with steps based on years of experience that will help retain longtime, experienced nurses for the community. 
• The establishment of a Professional Practice Committee (PCC). This committee of bedside RNs meets with management to advocate for safe patient care and nursing practice.
• Protections against unsafe floating. Floating is a management practice where nurses are reassigned to units of the hospital where they do not normally work. The contract includes language that establishes floating procedures and prevents nurses from being reassigned to units for which they have not established expertise or competency.

The nurses’ solidarity made this first contract possible just 11 months after unionizing with CNA last October. They look forward to building on this first contract and expanding the power of nurses to advocate for patients within the Prime Healthcare Services system, which owns 45 hospitals in 14 states. In California, CNA represents some 2000 nurses working at five Prime facilities.

“We are very excited about our new contract,” said Eric Luzano, an RN who has worked for almost four years at West Anaheim in the definitive observation unit and is also a bargaining team member. “It’s a great start, and we are really looking forward to seeing how we can improve conditions for nurses so that we can provide better care for our patients.”