California Nurses Win Historic Organizing Pact, Ratify Contract

by James Parks, Aug 22, 2007

More than 700 CNA/NNOC members rallied last year in Oakland, Calif., to protest a pending NLRB ruling that re-classified hundreds of thousands of nurses as “supervisors.”

In one of the largest-ever organizing agreements for registered nurses, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) announced this week a national pact with Tenet Healthcare Corp. that could open the door for up to 3,000 registered nurses at Tenet facilities around the country to join a union.

At the same time, CNA/NNOC members ratified a new master contract with Tenet that raises salaries by 25.5 percent and provides significant worker and patient protections. The new four-year master contract covers some 3,500 registered nurses at nine hospitals in California.

Under the organizing agreement, union organizers will have access to certain Tenet hospitals, and the hospitals will not run anti-union campaigns, the union says.

CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro said in a statement the organizing agreement

is a monumental moment for the nation’s RNs as Tenet nurses across the nation have an historic opportunity to join with 3,500 of their unionized colleagues to assure the highest standards for their patients and themselves.

DeMoro was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council earlier this month.

CNA/NNOC Organizing Director David Johnson told the Daily Labor Report the agreement calls for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold union elections at the selected hospitals. To avoid lengthy and bitter delays, the agreement also spells out the composition of the bargaining units and guarantees a “fast election” process after the union files an election petition, Johnson says. The agreement also includes an arbitration process to handle any disputes on whether either party lived up to the agreement, he adds.

Meanwhile, CNA/NNOC members overwhelmingly approved the new master contract for California in voting over the weekend. The previous deal expired Dec. 31, 2006.

On top of a 4 percent across-the-board pay raise in each of the four years, the nurses will receive increases of 2.5 percent after six months in the first year, 2 percent after six months in the second and third year and 3 percent after six months in the fourth year.

The nurses also won significant improvements inpatient care. The new agreement places California’s groundbreaking RN-to-patient ratios in the Tenet contracts, making them subject to contract enforcement provisions. It also strengthens guidelines to assure RNs work in areas of their specialty and provides for lifting policies to ensure safe patient handling.

Among many other provisions, the agreement also includes an important protection for nurses’ rights. Tenet agreed that it will not seek to exclude nurses from union representation on the dubious claim that they are “supervisors” under the new rules issued by the Republican-dominated NLRB in the Oakwood decision in October 2006. That decision could allow employers to classify millions of workers as supervisors. Under federal labor law, supervisors are prohibited from forming unions.

Alice Colacino, a member of the CNA/NNOC bargaining committee, says she’s proud of the contract.

This contract will reward our nurses for their diligence, skills and critical decision making, and will strengthen our collective voice. Our patients, nurses and Tenet will reap the benefits from this historic agreement.

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