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- The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals has embarked on an unprecedented approach to bargaining in the health care industry. The Kaiser Coalition of Unions, of which OFNHP is a member, represents 26 locals in 350 work sites covering almost 60,000 Kaiser employees. An agreement reached between employees and management of the health care giant three years ago called for a non-adversarial approach to bargaining to strengthen both the Kaiser facilities and its unions. That agreement has translated to a bargaining council of about 250 people that will develop a national scope for bargaining; local issues will still be bargained separately with the national scope as overlay. OFNHP president Kathy Schmidt calls this a brand new approach to bargaining in the health care industry. The OFNHP has nine slots on the massive bargaining council, says Schmidt, who sits on a national steering committee for bargaining, which consists of some 15 people. The larger bargaining council, along with subgroups addressing specific topics, is working to come to agreement with Kaiser management on national issues that will then become a part of every local contract.
- The private, for-profit management of the Bergen Regional Medical Center (Paramus, N.J.), where some 400 workers are represented by the FNHP-affiliated Health Professionals and Allied Employees, in late February, was given 90 days to shape up or ship out. Prior to the warning issued to Solomon Health Services by the county, a hearing concerning the decline in health care quality, working conditions and staffing at the Medical Center was held Feb. 7--with the HPAE in the frontlines--to give citizens, patients and HPAE members a chance to comment on a report issued last year examining conditions in the long-term care unit at the facility. The report was commissioned after the deaths of two elderly patients and after consistent reports of understaffing; the facility has been fined tens of thousands of dollars for violations of state regulations and substandard care. The union is calling for the county to cancel its contract with the company and have the hospital become a public facility once again. County officials are now insisting that management "establish appropriate staffing levels" in the nursing home unit and make other dramatic improvements or be considered in default of their contract.
- The Maryland Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals finished negotiating its first contract in mid-March, with a 4 percent pay increase in each year of the two-year contract. Notes MFNHP chief steward Joyce Van Blunk, this is the first full contract (the group had a partial contract under a state executive order) under the state's collective bargaining law. "It was a long, difficult contract to work out because the state is not used to negotiating with unions separately," said Van Blunk, who adds that the RNs in the state of Maryland have not had a salary review for more than 20 years. Since the state is facing a nursing shortage and nursing positions are experiencing a more than 10 percent turnover, the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has agreed to a review. The MFNHP is the bargaining agent for some 1,500 members throughout the state working in state facilities, state mental hospitals, community health departments, detention centers and many other locations.
