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- Nurses at City Avenue Hospital in Philadelphia won a strong first contract with Tenet Healthcare Corporation after a long campaign. The nurses organized in the Health Professionals and Allied Employees in April 1998 when the hospital was owned by a different chain. Before the nurses could negotiate a contract, the hospital chain went into a financial tailspin, and City Avenue was bought by Tenet. The new owners cut staff, slashed benefits and stalled contract negotiations. Last February, the nurses and their community allies held a public demonstration demanding that Tenet bargain in good faith. The new contract forbids management from pulling a nurse out of her or his clinical area unless the nurse volunteers and is trained appropriately. It also creates a pay scale with top pay of $24.82 an hour. Nurses will receive 4 percent to 9 percent raises over three years. Those already at the top of the scale will get a 3 percent bonus.
- Philadelphia Red Cross employees have a new contract with strong anti-mandatory overtime provisions. Management is limited to 10 mandated overtime assignments per month, about one-quarter as many as it has been assigning. Management also has a new financial incentive not to rely on overtime: nurses assigned to work more than 10 hours will now be paid for at least 16 hours. The union successfully resisted a management effort to convert RN jobs into lower-paid phlebotomist positions.
- The Federation of Nurses/UFT in collaboration with the New York City Board of Education will hold a professional development conference for school nurses on Nov. 2 at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. Keynote speaker Pat Banta, RN, a legislative analyst with the New York State Assembly Health Care Committee, will discuss school nurse staffing ratios, school-based health clinics, administering medication and do-not-resuscitate orders. Dr. Alan Agins of Brown University will present a workshop on ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorders, anxiety and panic.
- The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals has a beautiful new Web site, www.ofnhp.com. Several other FNHP locals also have Web sites. The national FNHP site has links to all of them.
