Registered nurses at three Los Angeles area hospitals, operated by the Providence Health and Services chain, have voted, nearly unanimously, to approve collective bargaining agreements that they say addresses key concerns about staffing and pay equity. 

In membership meetings ending this weekend, RNs approved the agreements at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Centers in San Pedro and Torrance and Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. For RNs at the Little Company of Mary facility in Torrance this is their first ever collective bargaining agreement.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, the state’s largest RN organization, represents 740 RNs at the Torrance hospital, 540 in Santa Monica, and 320 in San Pedro.

“We worked hard for our patients and we want to provide the best possible care for them. Achieving our first union contract with CNA is a significant step for nurses to continue to advocate for the safety of our patients,” Sheila Mercado, Torrance Labor and Delivery RN, said earlier this month at the time of the tentative settlement for the contracts.
 
“Fighting together as a unified army of CNA nurses within Providence, we laid down a marker for future gains in patient safety and RN standard of living at all three hospitals.  Our patients will be safer and RNs’ families will have better lives because of these contracts,” said Jack Cline, a Medical-Surgical RN at Saint John’s.

Economic gains were critical to reducing RN turnover at the facilities as all three have been plagued by the loss of experienced RNs who have left the Providence hospitals to work in other Los Angeles area hospitals with CNA contracts.

At Saint John’s Santa Monica, all RNs will receive pay increases of at least 22 percent over the four years of the agreement, with some earning as much as a 30 percent pay increase based on pay equity adjustments. Nurses say this will have a huge impact on the turnover at the facility where many have left to work at nearby hospitals.

For their first contract, all Torrance RNs will earn increases of at least 12 percent over four years, with larger amounts based on years of service, plus a signing bonus.
 
Pay increases for San Pedro RNs range up to 9.5 percent over the life of their 2-1/2 year agreement.

Pay equity with other area hospitals, which will help keep experienced RNs at the bedside, is also a patient care protection, along with other important gains for patients throughout the agreements.

Patient care improvements include limits on assignment of RNs to work in units outside their specialty expertise, limits on mandatory overtime to keep nurses fresh and reduce the threat of accidents and medical errors, and RN professional practice committees of direct care RNs elected by their peers to meet with management to address patient safety concerns and assure a stronger patient advocacy voice for RNs.

Finally, the nurses were able to rebuff efforts by Providence to gain the ability to unilaterally reduce nurses’ health coverage, while also establishing other workplace rights on scheduling and layoff protections.

“I am pleased we were able to address and resolve our patient and nurse safety concerns in our new agreement,” said San Pedro RN Julie Cullen.
 
“We truly see the value of being united with our colleagues from the other CNA-represented facilities in the Providence chain, said Heather Garrant, Intensive Care unit RN at Torrance. “With this first contract campaign, it has been an amazing experience to see the power of unity amongst nurses when they speak and stand up collectively for their patients and their community.”  

CNA is the largest nurses and hospital union in California with nearly 90,000 members, including 1,200 RNs at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center who voted last Thursday to join CNA. NNU, a national organization co-founded by CNA, represents some 185,000 RNs.