Registered nurses at Hospitals of Providence Sierra and Memorial Campuses reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract that extends safe patient care standards, improves pay equity to retain the most experienced nurses, and supports a strong union to best advocate for safe patient care, National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU) announced today.

RNs will vote on the agreement April 4-7. The new three-year agreement covers around 700 nurses at the two hospitals, which are owned by Tenet Healthcare.

“This agreement is a big victory because it supports our ability to advocate for quality, safe care for our patients—and upholds supportive working conditions for nurses,” said Patricia Crooks, RN. “We stood together to clearly fight for what was necessary, and we know that patients in our community will benefit from the protections in this agreement. I’m so proud of our RNs for standing up.”

Contract highlights include:  

• Health and safety protections for RNs, to ensure safe patient care
• Economic gains for improved recruitment and retention of nurses, including guaranteed pay increases averaging 9 percent over the life of the contract for full-time and part-time RNs, as well as pay equity for nurses
• Expansion of a Professional Practice Committee (PPC) featuring nurse representatives from every unit in the hospital, who meet to track patient care issues
• Protection of health benefits, preventing increased copays or deductibles

“Our nurses stood up for patient care and for fairness, and we won,” said Isabella (Cookie) Brockman, RN. “With our new agreement, nurses will be guaranteed salaries that are on par with their colleagues with similar experience. This will attract nurses to our hospital, and keep our experienced nurses as the bedside."

If approved, the new contract will run through November 30, 2019.

National Nurses United is the largest union of registered nurses in the country, representing over 150,000 RNs nationwide.