Our fellow nurses at Mercy Hospital in Roseburg (Oregon) finally got a first contract! As of early Friday morning (4 am) July 20th ONA has reached a tentative agreement with Mercy Medical Center. Hallelujah!! Congratulations to the Mercy nurses and all of us for our unified efforts in securing this historic first contract! We were certified as the bargaining representative in January 2006 and met for 43 full-day negotiation sessions and innumerable hours to achieve this agreement–(information for this post came from an ONA email)
Oregon Nurses Association
http://www.oregonrn.org/
Photos are from the twelve-hour-long picket outside of Mercy Medical Center on Monday July 16, 2007.
CLICK ANY PHOTO FOR LARGER IMAGE
Subject: Mercy Nurses get first contract!
1/3 of our nurses picketed last Monday (7-16-07)—with the support from many nurses and other workers from around Oregon and the Roseburg community.
The new contract adopts competitive pay with Eugene and Medford hospitals, including for the first time the implementation of a pay step scale. We won many nursing industry standard pay practices such as 1 ½ pay for consecutive weekends worked and 1 ½ pay for work from a low census standby, which the nurses had never previously enjoyed.
The contract includes job security provisions in the form of seniority bumping rights, a grievance/arbitration dispute resolution process, nursing practice provisions (including a dedicated voluntary workshop nurse education f und)…and a union security provision.
All of us can be pleased that the lives of many nurses, and their families, patients, and practice have been permanently enhanced by our collective efforts. The Mercy negotiating team and Mercy nurses deserve the real credit for this success. Super rep Diane Hedrick deserves special recognition for being the chief spokesperson during this arduous process.
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