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Nurse/Patient Ratios Enforcement Campaign
NYPNU is meeting with management on Friday, May 20th to review the staffing ratios for the 1st quarter of 2005. As you know, the nurse/patient ratios in our contract are now subject to arbitration, but only on a hospital-wide basis. The Hospital will report on the actual staffing compared to the contractual staffing standards on each unit and hospital-wide. If the average number of RNs per pay period is less than the number of RNs required to meet the nurse/patient ratios, we will be able to proceed to arbitration. If your unit did not submit the monthly staffing forms, our only recourse is to rely on the data provided by management. Meanwhile, it is imperative that nurses continue to complete the staffing forms for every shift so that we can enforce the ratios in the 2nd quarter.
Grievances and Unit Issues
There are several arbitrations scheduled over the next few months. An arbitrator will hear our case on mandatory overtime in the EPS Lab on June 7th. On July 20th the arbitration over the Case Managers’ staffing standard will be heard. The Hospital’s refusal to provide available housing to RNs will be arbitrated on Sept. 14th. The arbitration regarding charge/resource responsibilities on 8 Uris has been scheduled for Sept. 23rd.
We recently received responses to 2 class action grievances regarding staffing, breaks and non-nursing functions. On both 4 Lachman/4 East and 9 Uris, the Hospital acknowledged that “there were a number of occasions on the night shift where the ratios exceeded more than two patients over the [contractual] ratios.” Since the 9 Uris grievance hearing on March 24th, the Hospital has hired 5 RNs for the unit and a night traveler RN to cover the new hires’ orientation period. Management also suggested a follow-up meeting with 9 Uris staff nurses to discuss the desirability and feasibility of a “closed unit” model under which staff nurses would not float
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in or out of the unit and unscheduled absences would have to be covered internally. In response to nurses having difficulty taking breaks, Chris Sheppard, the Vice President of Nursing, advised nurses to inform their Nurse Manager or the ADN every time they are unable to take a break so that nursing management can take immediate action. To address the problem of nurses being required to perform non-nursing functions, the Hospital agreed to post for a full-time float unit clerk.
The Union also received responses to 2 grievances that were several months overdue: the 8 Uris grievance regarding charge/ resource responsibilities and the grievance over the Hospital’s failure to provide monitor nurses on telemetry floors. These responses did not address our concerns, and we are proceeding to arbitration.
On April 19th, we presented our greivance on the right of nurses who already live in hospital housing to transfer to other units. No response has been received, and we have filed for arbitration.
NYPNU has filed the following class action grievances over the past month: ER understaffing, 4 Wollman understaffing, denial of conference fee reimbursement to RNs who voluntarily attend ACLS certification courses, denial of layoff and bumping rights to MICU/SICU nurses and the de facto reclassification of these nurses as float pool RNs, and the denial of the education differential to RNs who hold a Masters degree in Traditional Oriental Medicine.
Political Action
The Working Families Party’s interviews with city council candidates will be held on Saturday, May 21th from 9:30am-5:00pm at the United Federation of Teachers, 52 Broadway, 3rd Fl., between Exchange Pl. and Morris St. The event is to all NYPNU members, but you must be a WFP member to vote on endorsements. Please call the NYPNU office at 212-988-5565 for more information.
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