Kaiser RNs Win Huge Gains in New Pact 25% Pay Hikes, Improved Retirement Security - Plus Landmark Language on RN Union, Advocacy Rights

In a comprehensive settlement providing breathtaking gains for the largest private sector group of unionized registered nurses in the nation, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today announced a tentative agreement on a new five-year contract for 14,000 RNs and Nurse Practitioners (NPs) in 70 Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern and Central California.

Highlights of the proposed pact include across-the-board pay increases of 26.5% over five years plus an additional 3% for hundreds of RNs and NPs who have worked 30 years at Kaiser, major improvements in retirement security, and strong patient care protections.

Perhaps most significantly, the agreement includes what CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro termed “the strongest language in the nation to protect the right of RNs and NPs to be CNA/NNOC members and safely advocate for their patients” in the face of a pending decision by the federal labor board that could strip hundreds of thousands of nurses of their rights to form and join unions.

The proposed pact, achieved at about 4 a.m. Friday morning, must still be ratified by the RNs and NPs with 36 membership meetings that will be held throughout the state from September 7 through September 26.

CNA President Deborah Burger, RN, who also chaired the Kaiser RN negotiating team, praised the package and noted that Kaiser was “hearing the RNs’ and NPs’ issues and taking significant steps to resolve them.”

One example is stronger language in the agreement on safe staffing. Kaiser agreed to include the specific RN-to-patient ratios, a state law that the hospital industry and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have sought to reverse, in the contract, and a requirement that any dispute over the day-to-day application of the ratios be submitted to an arbitrator for binding resolution.

“Ratios are critical to patient safety. We have fought long and hard to win the ratios and to defend them, and we are equally committed to assuring they are properly implemented at all times,” Burger said.

Another example, said Burger, was Kaiser’s agreement to eliminate a long-standing pay differential between Bay Area RNs and NPs and their colleagues who work in Sacramento and Fresno. The lower tiers for Sacramento and Fresno will be ended.

On retirement security, Kaiser agreed to provide full post-retirement medical benefits for all Kaiser RNs and NPs and their families – with no co-payments – for anyone with 15 years of service or more in Kaiser.

All those provisions send a strong signal of Kaiser’s commitment to retention of its most experienced RNs and NPs, and will help with recruitment of new nurses, Burger noted.

What may be most widely noticed, however, is language linked to rulings expected any day from the Bush administration’s National Labor Relations Board.

At the behest of the American Hospital Association and its state counterparts, such as the California Hospital Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NLRB is considering a ruling that could declare, by one estimate, nearly 850,000 RNs to be “supervisors” because they assign and delegate tasks to other employees, and thus would be ineligible for union representation.

“Such a decision could have devastating consequences for the rights of RNs, their efforts to improve living and working standards for themselves, and their ability to advocate for patients free of the fear of retaliation by employers willing to jeopardize patient safety for the bottom line,” DeMoro noted.

Kaiser, however, agreed that it “will not challenge the bargaining unit status of any nurse or job classification” covered by the CNA/NNOC pact and that it will not seek to “claim that any nurse or job classification covered by this agreement exercises supervisory authority” under any new definition created by the labor board. Further, Kaiser will not “challenge” the right of CNA/NNOC to “represent any nurse in any job classification covered by this agreement based on a claim that such a nurse is a supervisor.”

And the language will be enforced by expedited arbitration.  Click here to read the specific contract language.

“This groundbreaking agreement sets a standard for the nation,” said DeMoro, “with the significance of Kaiser’s respect for the judgment of RNs and NPs and their democratic right to choose a union.” That stance, she noted, “stands in sharp contrast with the persistent anti-union efforts of the Hospital Association and the Chamber of Commerce to deprive nurses and lead employees in other industries.”

“We call on all other hospitals and other employers to follow Kaiser’s example,” DeMoro said.