CNA Bargaining Update – 1/11/16

The Hospital’s bargaining team and the California Nurses Association met on 1/11/16, after the holiday break to resume negotiations for a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). This negotiation session was the seventh to occur since bargaining began in July of last year. 

While several issues were discussed, the most substantive issues — wages and benefits — were still not put forth by the CNA and not yet addressed during negotiations.

In previous communications by the Hospital’s bargaining team, the Hospital has consistently informed the CNA that economic issues – wages and benefits — are what our employees care about most. In order to make progress, the Hospital needs to receive the CNA’s proposal on these issues so that we can begin discussions on wages and benefits on behalf of our employees.  The Hospital’s bargaining team indicated that it saw no reason to continue to delay a discussion on these important issues as the Hospital no longer had any new proposals on language issues to discuss and hoped the economics would be presented by CNA during the next round of negotiations.

CNA’s bargaining team expressed that it would be getting to wages and benefit proposals for the Hospital to consider in the near future. We are hoping to receive these proposals at the next bargaining session.  The Hospital’s bargaining team clearly understands that wages and benefits are very important to our employees and managers and will continue to press ahead and provide timely updates on the status of these two extremely important issues.  
 
As for the few non-economic proposals that were discussed, there were fruitful discussions about shift requirements for per diem employee availability, the role of the Professional Practice Committee (PPC) and contractual language that relates to the PPC, and the Hospital and CNA had a fruitful discussion on call pay. 

At the conclusion of the negotiations, the Hospital’s bargaining team requested, and is currently waiting for, additional bargaining dates from the CNA so that we may begin discussions on the more substantive issues, like wages and benefits.