Grievances and Arbitrations

• The Union has filed for arbitration in a case involving the unreasonable application of the Hospital’s attendance policy. Specifically, a 0.8 Employee received a verbal counseling for a total of 4 occurrences from September 2005 to September 2006, even though she had no occurrences for the 8 month period from November 2005 to June 2006. In essence, management counseled her only after her attendance had significantly improved.
• A Med/Surg RN who was suspended pending investigation on 1/20/07 was, after the Union’s intervention, reinstated with full back pay on 2/5/07.

Meeting with Pension Committee

On January 4th, NYPNU and our attorneys met with the fiduciaries for the Hospital’s pension plan to discuss our concerns over the plan’s investment allocation. The Hospital’s investment manager prepared a detailed report on their investment strategy, which has been reviewed by our attorneys. We will continue to monitor the situation and will take any action recommended by our legal counsel.

Town Hall Meetings

Town Hall meetings are an excellent opportunity to communicate problems on your unit directly to upper management. By taking advantage of this opportunity, you are engaging in collective action to improve everyone’s working conditions. Meetings will be held at LHH on March 15th at 12:00pm and 3:00pm and on March 20th at 8:00am and 1:00pm. At MEETH, the meetings are scheduled for March 26th at 7:00am and 1:00pm.

Manager Evaluations

A total of 143 NYPNU members returned manager evaluations in September. The aggregation of the data was delayed because of the priority given to negotiations and preparing the new contract for the printer. We apologize for the delay, but the compilation of the data is now complete. We have protected the anonymity of all respondents. Management will not see any of the original evaluations. For each manager, we typed up all comments and averaged the grades. We have given the summary data to management, and it is available for members to review in the NYPNU office.

Importance of Timely Re-certifications

The contract provides that all regular staff RNs, who are required to be certified in BCLS, ACLS, PALS or NALS, will be reimbursed for “the cost of . . . timely [emphasis added] re-certifications prior to the expiration of the certification” and be paid for hours of attendance at such re-certification courses (Article XXII, CBA). Please note that reimbursement is contingent on timely re-certification. It is your responsibility to make sure that your certification does not lapse.

Health Care in the Spitzer Era: Opportunities and Challenges

The sponsor of this workshop is Rekindling Reform, a joint initiative of academic programs, professional associations, trade unions, and health care advocates, of which NYPNU is a part. The Hon. Richard Gottfried, Health Committee Chair, New York State Assembly, will deliver the keynote address. The event will be held at the Hunter College School of Social Work, Auditorium 129 East 79th St. (at Lexington Ave.), Friday morning, March 2, 2007, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. To RSVP or for more information, send a message to email@rekindlingreform.org or call 212-580-3890.