Contract Gets 96 Percent ” From Nurses

Sun., March 22, 1998

From Staff And Wire Reports

Members of the nurses union at Sacred Heart Medical Center overwhelmingly approved a new contract, union officials said Saturday.

The three-year contract takes effect Monday, said Barbara Heimbigner, co-chairwoman of the Sacred Heart unit of the Washington State Nurses Association.

Ninety-six percent of the nurses who voted approved the contract, Heimbigner said. She wouldn’t say how many of the hospital’s 1,100 nurses voted.

Under the contract, nurses won’t have to be on call if they work in in-patient units, and will have specific input on any proposed staffing changes. They conceded to management on making union membership optional, and by accepting the hospital’s first-year salary offer.

Nurses will receive a 2 percent raise the first year, with a cost of living raise over the next two years that could fluctuate between 1.7 percent and 3 percent. “We stood together and accomplished what we needed to for patient care in Spokane,” Heimbigner said. , DataTimes

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