Tentative Agreement!!!!

Join Fred Katz and I as we bring the 2017 negotiator endorsed contract for 2017-2020. After more than 300 nurses, friends, family members, pets, and community members lined the sidewalks yesterday to show their support for our bargaining team on our first day of mediation and many more nurses who couldn’t attend the rally wore black scrubs to show their support while they worked, posted photos in solidarity and shared photos with the #iloverrmcnurses hashtag. This is one of the largest nurse actions anyone’s ever seen in Jackson County. And the hospital’s administrative team heard you. Thanks to your support, and a 15-hour negotiation session featuring a lot of difficult discussions and back and forth movement, our bargaining team was able to reach a tentative agreement with the hospital’s administrative team that our team can recommend a ‘YES’ vote on. The tentative agreement: Retains nurses’ current earned time off (ETO) accrual rates Maintains health insurance provisions and premium increase caps Includes wage increases of 2.5 percent per year each of the first 2 years and 2 percent in the final year. Increases preceptor differential to $1.75/hour, NRT differential to $3/hour, BSN differential to $1/hour, and evening shift differential to $2.25/hour. Establishes a process for unit-based staffing and scheduling committees to recommend the use of relief nurses to allow nurses to take their meal and rest breaks And much more!