■ The Federation of Nurses/UFT voted overwhelmingly to accept a new three-year contract with the management of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. The contract was ratified on Jan. 31, just hours before it was set to expire.

“The contract was quite a victory for us,” says UFT special representative Anne Goldman. “The nurses came together like never before, and we able to negotiate for things we could not in the past.”

Terms of the new deal include 3 percent annual wage raises for both staff- and per-diem nurses and full employer payment of health benefits—no copays. The new pact also includes a $3,500 healthcare termination benefit for those RNs with 25-plus years of service who retire between the ages of 62 and 65.

Nurses also won a new educational differential, certification differentials, certificate-fee payments and tuition reimbursements for all RNs holding nursing master’s. An additional step was added to the experience differential, and increases were made to the VNS experience scale for those with 16 to 20 years of company service. There were no givebacks. The Federation represents 2,2000 nurses at VNS.

At press time, 600 nurses represented by the Federation at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn were preparing to strike over the hospital’s proposal to convert the nurses’ defined-benefit plan to a defined- contribution or 401(k)-type plan. The nurses’ contract expired Feb. 28.

■ Two AFT Healthcare locals at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in Norwich, Conn., averted a strike after they agreed to a three-year contract. The unions, Lawrence & Memorial, Local 5051 LPN/Techs, which represents 239 licensed practical nurses and technologists and Lawrence & Memorial, 5049 Registered Nurses Union, which represents 437 RNs, had previously rejected proposals to increase health insurance and underfund 401(k) plans. After 22 bargaining sessions, the union locals and the hospital finally came to an agreement and the contract was ratified.
“We’re not being greedy,” LPN and Local 5051 member Karen Stankiewicz told the Norwich Bulletin. “We deliver great healthcare, and we expect to receive good healthcare.”

■ The National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of the charge nurses at Margaretville (N.Y.) Memorial Hospital, represented by New York State United Teachers. The hospital filed a Kentucky River objection to the bargaining unit: saying that the charge nurses should be considered supervisors and therefore ineligible to be a part of the union. The board found that the employer had not provided evidence showing the nurses were accountable for the work performance of lower-level employees; therefore they were not supervisors.