The Union has made several proposals regarding improvements in your working conditions, pay, and medical and pension benefits. After nine bargaining sessions the Union made progress on issues such as protecting employees in the event of a layoffs; improving the pulling procedure; distributing holidays more equitably and to ensure the full holiday off if you request; and improving the procedure of making weekends up. However, the Hospital has absolutely refused all PTO/EIB proposals.

Despite the fact that the hospital acknowledged that there is always money available for what they consider to be appropriate priorities, giving the nurses a raise was not one of them. In a statement from the KMC/SBBH negotiators, a wage increase for the nurses would "be the demise of Kimball". To make matters worse, even if we agreed to forego a wage increase, they still would not agree to limit the amount of an increase in the cost of your health insurance and acknowledged that the nurses might have to pay for all of the increases in medical costs, while the Hospital paid none. Furthermore, the Hospital admitted that the health benefits themselves could be reduced even while you pay more for less.

To add insult to injury, management rejected our proposal simply to protect your pension - they insist on retaining the right to reduce our retirement benefits if they want to save money.

The Hospital keeps telling us that while the employer can always move things around  in finances, they choose not to. While the Union recognizes that the Hospital says its current economic status is poor, we are outraged that management would attempt to exploit this matter in an effort to eradicate the economic security, and undermine the health and pension benefits, of our members. The nurses did not create the Hospital's economic problems. It is unfair that they view our health and pension benefits as a way to fix them.

At this juncture the bargaining team felt obligated to report back to our members with this update. We have extended the contract by fourteen days and have set days to negotiate with the Hospital on May 5th, 6th, and 12th.

NJNU - CWA Local 1091 Negotiating Team