Dear Colleagues,
Tuesday, March 25, marked the first of four bargaining sessions scheduled for the week. It was a busy day with a lot of back-and-forth discussions on several topics:
- Responses on New Technology and Immigration Enforcement
- New Technology: We reinforced our proposed language, which states that “the use of technology shall not limit the Nurse’s exercise of clinical judgment in assessment, evaluation, planning, and implementation of care, nor from acting as a patient advocate.” Our proposal further clarifies that new technologies are not intended to eliminate the nurse’s role in the delivery of patient care.
- Immigration Enforcement: Our response calls for the hospitals to share with all nurses in very specific terms how staff should respond to law enforcement officers.
- An enhanced economic proposal despite industry headwinds
- The hospitals’ team improved our wage proposal, which would ensure that SHC and LPCH nurses remain ahead of both UCSF and Kaiser, even after accounting for Kaiser’s increase next year.
- Our team provided context for the hospitals’ position on economic issues by sharing news of the adverse economic impacts being felt by the health care industry, including nationwide job cuts and hiring freezes due to potential cuts in Medicaid funding and other economic pressures.
- Further discussions on PNDP
- Our team returned a response to PNDP that focused on process and administrative improvements that both sides agreed were important. We continue to be open to expanding PNDP eligibility should CRONA be open to our criteria.
- Our team returned a response to PNDP that focused on process and administrative improvements that both sides agreed were important. We continue to be open to expanding PNDP eligibility should CRONA be open to our criteria.
- Withdrawal of proposals to generate movement
- We withdrew our proposal on vacancies and internal transfers and our proposal on expanding the radius of floating nurses to include different work locations. Despite the importance of these withdrawn proposals to the hospitals, our team withdrew them in a good faith effort to get closer to an agreement. The parties also now have a TA on the removal of the side letter on strategic recruitment and retention.
- We withdrew our proposal on vacancies and internal transfers and our proposal on expanding the radius of floating nurses to include different work locations. Despite the importance of these withdrawn proposals to the hospitals, our team withdrew them in a good faith effort to get closer to an agreement. The parties also now have a TA on the removal of the side letter on strategic recruitment and retention.
- We return to the table on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, March 26, 27 and 28, optimistic we can continue to close gaps and make progress toward an agreement. We’ve also let CRONA know we are available over the weekend on both Saturday and Sunday.
- As always, you can find these updates, as well as stories of extraordinary nurse care, on our website.
Thank you for your dedication and please stay tuned!
Dale Beatty, DNP, RN, NEA-BC
Chief Nurse Executive & Senior Vice President; Patient Care Services
Watson Caritas Coach®
Stanford Health Care
Jesus Cepero, PhD, RN, NEA-BC
Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services
Stanford Children’s Health | Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford
