Providence St. Joseph Medical Center and the unions that represent its registered nurses and service and tech employees were no closer to reaching agreement about patient care, contracts and other divisive issues when the two sides met briefly for scheduled bargaining negotiations on June 4. The two sides were hoping to reach agreement and stave off a strike that the unions have planned for June 12. More talks are scheduled for June 7. The approximately 600 nurses, who are members of the SEIU 121 RN union, and the approximately 850 service and tech workers, who are members of the SEIU UHW union, have been in negotiations with the hospital since Feb. 12. Among the issues the two sides have reached impasse over is the hospital’s use of sub-contractors for its laundry service, which the employees say has decreased in quality since then; the employees’ desire to have a dispute resolution system with a binding third party; nurse staffing, which the union says it too low; and wages for nurses with experience, which the union says is not up to par with other area hospitals. At the recent talks, “The hospital made very slight movement on the wages,” said Tina Millspaugh, SEIU 121 RN union representative for the hospital. “They said no to everything else. They’re not interested in addressing the other issues we have on the table.” Although the hospital agreed to a wage scale increase, “It’s not up to our standards,” Millspaugh said. However, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bernie Klein, the hospital’s wage scale is very competitive with other regional hospitals. In fact, he said, it wouldn’t make sense to underpay nurses because of the nursing shortage, which gives nurses the opportunity to work anywhere they like. While the nurses and service and tech employees go on strike, the hospital will have to hire temporary staff to fill their places until June 15. The union is terming this move a lockout, but the hospital takes issue with this term, saying it is not actually a lockout. According to Klein, the outside care companies providing the temporary staff needed to fill the nursing and other staff positions during the strike can’t usually provide services for less than four or five days. “We’ve been fortunate to be able to do this for just a three-day period instead of a four-day period,” said Dan Boyle, spokesman for Providence Health and Services.
