Dec. 10, 2015

ONA / HRM

Executive Committee

Chair:

Elese Sewell, RN,

Emergency Room (ED)

Negotiation Committee

Tina Jorgensen, RN,

Surgical Services

Brenda Ralph, RN,

Home Health and Hospice

Elese Sewell, RN,

Emergency Room

Pam Howard, RN,

Family Maternity Center

Margo Burtchaell, RN,

ICU, Medical Surgical

(Med/Surg)

Sarah Thompson

503-293-0011 ext. 321

thompson@OregonRN.org

Rob Nosse

503-293-0011 ext. 318

nosse@OregonRN.org

Oregon Nurses Association

18765 SW Boones Ferry Road

Suite 200 Tualatin OR 97062

1-800-634-3552 within Oregon

www.OregonRN.org

Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital (HRM)

Bargaining Update Three

Continued on Page 2

Oregon Nurses Association Bargaining Update Newsletter

In this issue

What Should We Do About Permanent Schedules? – Pages 1-2

Should We Have a Clinical Ladder – Page 2

A Few Things We Want to Remind You About Article 4:

Work Schedules and Overtime – Page 3

We Bargain Again Dec. 22 – Page 3

ONA Flu Vaccination Policy, ONA 2016 Convention – Page 4

What Should We Do about Permanent Schedules? We had our third bargaining session

Tuesday, Dec. 8. Other than making a

few minor counter proposals and

modifying our opening wage offer to

be in line with the current Providence

St. Vincent’s proposal. (We are still

proposing that we have the Providence

Portland/Providence St. Vincent wage

scale and the Hospital is still proposing

raises based on the current Hood River

scale of less than 1 percent a year.)

We spent almost all of our time talking

about the Hospital’s proposal around

permanent schedules – Appendix D.

Just about every time we bargain

there are attempts by the Hospital to

either eliminate this language or

change it significantly.

Their opening proposal mirrors a pattern

scheduling process that is being trialed

at Providence Portland Medical Center,

which has no tradition with the exception

of the emergency department of doing a

regular and predictable schedule.

Rather than saying “NO” we took the

approach of trying to understand what

problems having permanent schedules

that are regular and predictable for on-

going periods of time are causing the

Hospital. It was a free flowing

conversation with acknowledgement on

both sides of some of the concerns and

challenges and the benefits of having

schedules that are on-going and

predictable.

After two hours of discussion with the

Hospital and among ourselves here is

what we are willing to consider changing.

We think there needs to be a way for

the Hospital to come to the nurses in

a unit and say census or provider

surgery schedules have changed

and we need to make some tweaks

to the schedule.

We think there should be a way to

examine whether or not a particular

schedule should continue when

someone quits or retires – provided

that does not necessitate a whole

sale rewrite or revision of everyone’s

schedule.

We are not sure if the provision of

not filling a job for 45 days before

the schedule can technically be

reworked by the Hospital makes

sense anymore. We think we could

speed up that process and honestly

believe most of the units already do.

We also believe there should be a

way to allow nurses to change their

permanent schedules that does not

Page 2 HRM Bargaining Update

Oregon Nurses Association | 18765 SW Boones Ferry Road Suite 200 | Tualatin OR 97062 | 1-800-634-3552 within Oregon | www.OregonRN.org

Page 2

What Should We Do about Permanent Schedules (Continued from Page 1)

necessitate multiple posting of every single position

where there is only one vacancy and the rest of the

nurses are just changing the days of the week they

work.

Your team is going to try to revise Appendix D to

address these concerns and hopefully make this part

of the contract more workable and thus palatable to the

Hospital so we can stop bargaining over this part of the

contract every two years.

Your team is also committed to figuring out if every

change in the schedule has to be agreed to every time

by all the nurses on the unit or if a majority of those

who work on the unit need to agree and that should

suffice. There are pros and cons to either approach.

We know your schedule and having one that is

predictable and regular is important. We are not willing

to give up this important work satisfier.

Instead we are trying to make it more workable and

operational for the Hospital. Of course the “devil is in

the details” if you have thoughts or opinions about this

issue please talk to a member of the team

Several Providence Hospitals have a nursing clinical

ladder programs. The purpose of these ladder

programs is to encourage greater professionalism and

commitment to excellence in patient care and nursing

in general. Nurses who involve themselves in the

ladder program at these facilities take on extra work.

They do projects for their units, purse further education,

make presentations about nursing or patient care, and

conduct research on aspects of patient care and

nursing practice. These nurses also keep journals or

write essays about their practice and their experiences

and document their growth in their practice and

profession from novice to expect. And they earn

additional compensation for doing so.

Ideally the program is staff nurse driven and governed.

Staff nurses at the other Providence facilities, where

ladder program exits, both design and govern the

program and accept and approve applicants.

A group of nurses at Providence Hood River

Memorial Hospital would like to start such a

program here. We made a proposal for our contract

to do so.

At our second bargaining session, the Hospital

administration team shared their concerns about

our proposal. They reminded us that a ladder program

was considered in 2006, almost a decade ago. It was

never launched because there was not enough interest

in both participating in the governance and in being

actual applicants. We think maybe that sentiment has

changed in 10 years since we first tried but we need

more than antidotal evidence if we are going to make

progress on this kind of proposal in our negotiations.

We are trying to gage support for this proposal at

our Hospital and have developed a quick survey

that we would all of you to take. The survey, which

asks key questions about our proposed Providence

Hood River Memorial clinical ladder program, should

only take you five minutes to complete. The resulting

information will be very helpful to our bargaining team.

Please click on the link below and spend five minutes

taking the survey so we can be better prepared to talk

about this proposal Dec. 22. Click here https://

www.surveymonkey.com/r/VHWN62L to access the

online survey.

Should We Have a Clinical Ladder?

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION

Please update your contact information, especially

your address and personal email, as soon as possible.

Your team is encouraging all nurses go to

www.OregonRN.org and click on

Update Your Information under the Membership

Services tab to provide ONA with updated information

to ensure all messages get through in a timely manner.

Together we can make sure everyone is involved and stays informed!

We Bargain Again

on Dec. 22

Page 2 HRM Bargaining Update

Oregon Nurses Association | 18765 SW Boones Ferry Road Suite 200 | Tualatin OR 97062 | 1-800-634-3552 within Oregon | www.OregonRN.org

Page 3

Your Association team did not propose any changes to

this section of the contract. All the changes that were

suggested were made by the Hospital. They proposed

that we eliminate time and a half pay for the nurse on a

variable schedule who is forced to work a weekend for

which he or she would normally not be scheduled. (For

nurses without permanent schedules the contract is

pretty clear that they should only be scheduled for

every other weekend.) We are not sure about the

fairness of this proposal, and we did not agree to it.

The Hospital also wants to reduce the notice it gives

for cancellation before a penalty on them of at least

four hours of paid work is required from two hours to

one hour.

With their proposal, if you get less than one hour’s

notice of cancellation you would still have options to

get at least four hours of pay.

If you get more than an hour’s notice you could

be cancelled outright or put on call with no pay

obligation unless you were put on stand by and

called into work.

Your Association team did not agree to this proposal.

Given how far some people have to drive and time

needed to get ready for work we think two hours of

notice is reasonable.

Please Note: If you are cancelled with more

than 2 hours of notice and asked to take

standby and be on-call and available to

come in, you were put on standby.

There is not a two hour grace period

(something we keep hearing about) where

the Hospital gets to change their mind

and have you come in at your regular

straight time rate.

You were cancelled and put on call and then

you were called back in.

When that happens, you earn time-and-half.

Appendix F in the back of our contract is pretty

clear about this.

A Few Things We Want to Remind You about Article 4:

Work Schedules and Overtime

We expect to spend the

bulk of our time talking

about permanent

schedules though we

do plan to make it very

clear that we cannot

agree to the elimination

of our sick leave benefits

and the modifications

proposed to our vacation

benefits and that we

need a meaningful raise.

Stay tuned.

Page 2 HRM Bargaining Update

Oregon Nurses Association | 18765 SW Boones Ferry Road Suite 200 | Tualatin OR 97062 | 1-800-634-3552 within Oregon | www.OregonRN.org

Page 4

April 11-13, 2016 Convention Schedule

Monday, April 11 - Half-day Staffing Workshop (1-5 p.m.) Tuesday, April 12 - ONA Nurse Continuing Education Day

Wednesday, April 13 - ONA House of Delegates

Join Us in Seaside for ONA’s 2016 Convention

Lead by Example: Ethical Nursing Practice

ONA Position on Influenza Vaccination

We believe in an influenza vaccination policy that

protects you, your patients and your privacy.

Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) believes that all

nurses and other health care professionals should be

vaccinated against seasonal influenza. However, ONA

strongly opposes requiring influenza vaccinations of

nurses and other health care workers as a condition of

employment.

Nurses across the state have seen a variety of policies

implemented by health care facilities in an attempt to

stop the spread of influenza. As Oregon’s largest group

of health care professionals, nurses have seen and

experienced the best and worst of these policies,

including mandatory masking for those who choose not

to get vaccinated. ONA is striving to propose an

evidence-based, common sense approach to protect

health care workers

and patients while

protecting the

privacy of all

employees’ health

records.

We believe education and access to vaccinations, when

combined with other methods to prevent influenza

transmission, are sufficient and effective in protecting

patients and healthcare professionals.

Click Here to read ONA’s Seasonal Influenza

Vaccination for Health Care Workers Position

If you have questions about ONA's Position Statement

on Seasonal Influenza Vaccination, please contact the

ONA Professional Services department here.