Hospital, Nurses To Talk Today Federal Mediator Calls Two Sides Together In Sacred Heart Dispute
Nurses and management at Sacred Heart Medical Center are scheduled to meet tonight to try to settle on a new contract.
The more than 1,100 registered nurses at the hospital have been working without a contract since Dec. 31. Contract negotiations broke down Feb. 17 after nine bargaining sessions over almost three months.
A federal mediator asked both sides to return to the bargaining table at 7 p.m., said administrator Carol Sheridan, vice president of nursing at Sacred Heart.
“We’re prepared to meet to get this settled,” Sheridan said.
The nurses have been staging informational pickets and vigils for the past week and a half to try to raise community awareness of nursing issues.
Nurses are in the process of deciding whether to vote to authorize a strike, said Barbara Heimbigner, co-chairwoman of the Sacred Heart unit of the Washington State Nurses Association. If the nurses decide to strike, they would have to give management 10 days’ notice.
If the contract isn’t settled, “I would assume we’d do a strike vote because that’s the next step,” Heimbigner said.
Nurses want to have input on proposed staffing changes and want to make sure the hospital doesn’t require them to be on mandatory call to cover for nursing shortages.
The union also wants nurses to have mandatory membership in the union. But administrators say nurses should be able to choose whether to belong.
The two sides also differ on pay increases.
Nurses want a 3 percent raise every year for the next three years. Administrators want to give nurses a 1.9 percent raise the first year and then the standard cost-of-living raise for the next two years, with a 3 percent annual cap.
Members of the nurses’ bargaining team plan to meet before the talks with administration to discuss strategy. They’ve been polling nurses for several days to see which issues are most important and which might be compromised.
“What we’re hoping for is we can settle this,” Heimbigner said. “Nobody wants to go on strike.”
, DataTimes