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Spring 2005

Lutheran Medical Center: a good settlement but more needs to be done

The same tenacity in battling for a good contract that VNS nurses showed carried the day at Brooklyn’s Lutheran Medical Center, where a new on-time contract provided raises and improved benefits for the complex’s 550 registered nurses.

RNs Melinda Rebolos and Julie Maravel, two members of the Lutheran Medical Center negotiating team, discuss the proposed contract with Special Representative Anne Goldman.

Although the contract was ratified overwhelmingly, UFT President Randi Weingarten said the contract was an ongoing “work in progress,” as more will be done to improve staffing levels and working conditions.

Nurses approved the two-year agreement in a Feb. 28 contract ratification vote, a day before the old contract expired. Had the contract been rejected, a strike vote would have been called. Instead, the contract won wide acceptance.

The new pact comes with a 3.5 percent increase in base pay retroactive to Jan. 1 as well as an additional 3 percent next January and 1 percent more on July 1, 2006. It also increases the experience differential to $1,000 for every year of nursing experience up to 25 years.

Following the ratification vote, Weingarten congratulated Coordinator of Negotiations Lucille Swaim, Special Representative Anne Goldman, LMC Chapter Leader Renee Gestone-Setteducato and the union’s negotiating committee for their work in crafting the agreement.

“This new contract will help us recruit and retain good nurses while making certain that each patient receives quality care,” Weingarten said. But she and Goldman both noted that even with all of the gains and improvements under the new contract, more work remains to be done.

“We are pleased to have negotiated another on-time contract that makes our nurses’ salaries competitive and attractive,” Goldman said. “But above all, we will continue to seek appropriate staffing levels throughout the hospital.”
The agreement preserves the nurses’ health-benefit plan for the next two years. It also aids recruitment efforts by granting immediate health benefits to new hires instead of requiring them to work 60 days first, which was the practice under the expired contract.

The new contract increases shift differentials to $5,000 per year for nurses working evenings (3 p.m. to 11 p.m.) and $6,000 for those working nights (11 p.m. to 7 a.m.). It also raises the pay differential for nurses achieving certification to $2,000 per year and increases annual tuition reimbursement to $5,000.

Other gains include improving staffing ratios by increasing the number of nurses at various units in the hospital and minimizing floating, a practice that requires nurses to work in different departments or on floors outside their regular assignments.

The pact calls for the hospital to provide more workers and better equipment to help nurses reduce staff injuries and minimize trauma when moving patients. It also improves staff development programs for new nursing graduates and raises their base pay rate to the minimum compensation rate for staff nurses.