Kaiser Permanente RN’s approve new contract after strike

Registered nurses and nurse practitioners who work at 21 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and 65 clinics across Northern and Central California, the largest nurses’ collective bargaining contract in the U.S., have voted to approve a new three-year agreement.

The nurses went on strike in early January seeking improvements in patient care, health and safety protections and raises. It seems with this new deal they got what they wanted.

The pact was approved in membership meetings held Tuesday through Friday last week from Santa Rosa to Fresno.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United represents 18,000 Kaiser RNs and NPs, part of an overall membership of 185,000 RNs nationally in NNU, the largest U.S. organization of nurses.

“Kaiser RNs have long been in the forefront of standing up for their patients and themselves setting a benchmark that others have followed,” noted CNA/NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro. “The new pact could not have been realized without the unified determination of Kaiser nurses, to assuring the highest level of quality care for patients as well as protections for the nurses who deliver that care.”

“This contract will set the national standards for all other hospitals to achieve patient protections and solidify the future of the nursing profession,” said Zenei Cortez, RN, chair of the Kaiser RN bargaining team and a co-president of CNA.

“We look forward to a new chapter in our interactions with Kaiser,” DeMoro added. “We especially appreciate the commitment of Kaiser’s leadership to working to address our concerns, including working through the complicated problems associated with the changes in health care delivery, some of them related to the Affordable Care Act, and the attention it has paid in this contract to the health and safety of its registered nurses as well as patients.”

“This contract continues the CNA tradition of providing an atmosphere where patients come first and nurses’ futures are protected,” said Kaiser Modesto RN Amy Glass.

Major components of the agreement include:

The addition of 540 RN positions which RNs say should substantially improve the quality of care for hospitalized patients. Groundbreaking health and safety provisions, including a new accidental death and dismemberment benefit for RNs in recognition harmed by workplace violence and other workplace protections for RNs exposed to infectious diseases like Ebola and needle stick injuries. Over the three years of the agreement, all the nurses will receive 14 percent pay increases through across the board hikes and lump sum payments, including a 5 percent increase retroactive to January 1, 2015.

CNA said it’s also committed to helping National Union of Healthcare Worker Kaiser workers, including mental health clinicians, achieve a contract agreement as well.