HPAE Local 5138 at Southern Ocean Medical Center

The Local 5138 Executive Board
Our local officers with the Local 5138 banner...

After a great turnout and thoughtful discussion at membership meetings held throughout the day the nurses overwhelmingly voted to ratify the new agreement set to expire on October 31, 2013.
The Local would like to express their sincere sadness at the loss of Case Management staff from our bargaining unit. We thank them for their Union support and wish them well in whatever decision they make going forward.
Highlights of the agreement are below:
 Retained flex hour and management cannot do bargaining unit work on a flexed unit
 Regular compensation rate to now include differentials
 Increased certification pay to $2 per hour for 1 certification and $2.75 per hour for 2
 Increased education differential to $1.50 per hour for Bachelor degree and $2 per hour for Masters degree (degrees do not have to be in Nursing)
 Increased holiday on call to $6 per hour
 Increased tuition to $5000 for FT and $2500 for PT
 Additional conference day for PT
 Union has the ability to appoint members to committees
 Added new waived benefit compensation $900 for medical and $75 for dental
 Added 6 paid holidays for FT and 3 paid holidays for PT
 Extra 8hrs PTO for 20yrs, 16hrs for 25yrs and 24hrs for 30yrs
 Extra weekend work paid at time and one half
 Part timers can earn up to $10 more per hour for working extra shifts
 Nurses can earn up to an additional $3 per hour by participating in CARE program
 3% automatic (you do not have to participate) contribution to 403b for eligible employees
A special thanks to all who participated and especially to the negotiating team members for their hard work, time and dedication.

2011 Negotiating Team Members

Front: Kathy Whalen, Fred DeLuca
Middle: Debra McGlynn, Sally Fessler, Karen Daly
Back: Jeff Hayden

The full text of the agreement will soon be available.

HIT Best Practices Checklist: How does SOCH measure up?
The AFT recently adopted a resolution outlining Best Practices that should govern the development, introduction, and implementation of Health Information Technologies (HIT) in our hospitals, including electronic health records (EHR); computerized physician order entry (CPOE); computerized time and attendance systems; automated pharmacy systems, etc [Click here to view the resolution]. HPAE was part of the Working Group that developed these Best Practices.

We’d like to hear how well your facility or your unit/department measures up to these Best Practices. Please complete and submit this HIT Best Practices Checklist. We’ll share the results of this informal survey with you and policy-makers.

Click here to take the survey and let us know how your facility measures up.

Update from Our General Membership Meeting
July 08, 2010
The union nurses of Southern Ocean County Hospital local 5138 had their general membership meeting on May 5th. Attendance is historically light in non-negotiation years, but I was pleasantly surprised with the number of members that
did participate. For those nurses that were unable to attend I have been asked to write a summary.

Our President, Kathy Whalen and our local executive board have had multiple meetings with our new Vice President of Nursing, Dr. Richard Ridge. He continues to encourage collaboration and improved communication and has already demonstrated that he will continue to honor his open door policy. How refreshing it was to have Dr. Ridge give all of us his personal cell phone number for important issues. Dr. Ridge is setting goals for SOCH to become Magnet certified. The Meridian Health system already has several Magnet certified hospitals so our new administration wants us to align with the others. In order for us to be ready for Magnet status, Dr. Ridge is encouraging all RNs to become nationally certified in their specialty area. It will be generously rewarded with $1.75 per hour by our present contract. Also Dr. Ridge is encouraging continuing your college education as well. Many of our nurse managers are being mandated to complete their BSN in a timely fashion as a minimum standard of Meridian management.

Preparations for our next negotiations were discussed at each of the three meetings. This will be our first negotiation with Meridian. We are being led to believe that Meridian wants continuity of policies in all their facilities. This being said, our negotiating team is reviewing Jersey Shore Medical Center’s newest contract to see how it compares to our own contract. We are proud of our present contract and we plan to protect and improve it next year. Contract negotiations will probably include the addition of some form of a clinical ladder. We have discussed the policies of the clinical ladder at length with the union leaders at Jersey Shore Medical Center. We have been assured that their clinical ladder is not subjective like SOCH experienced years ago but monitored and collaborated with and by fellow union nurses.

At each of the three meetings important issues were brought forth by individual units. Staffing remains a major problem. Their remains a constant shortage of nurses’ aids, secretaries, techs and patient monitors. ER, CCU and Mancini have all had similar flexing complaints. Their is a pattern where management flexes a nurse and cancels them without asking if the nurse will be “on call.” Later in the shift these units get slammed with emergencies, multiple admissions and deteriorating patient conditions. Flexing continues to set the nurses up to fail which in reality is not providing safe, quality care to our patients. Many nurses told stories that were unacceptable for the standard of care that is expected at SOCH.

Contract violations persist with inappropriate flexing. Know your contract language and make sure it is honored. If you are asked to flex make sure you ask, “Is it my turn? Is somebody on overtime? Is there an agency nurse working?” Several grievances have won lost wages for inappropriate flexing.

The emergency room nurses have experienced months of mishandled staff schedules which included multiple scheduling contract violations. Hopefully by the time this newsletter goes to print the nurses, with their union representative Jean Holden and our local president, Kathy Whalen will have had their meeting with Dr. Ridge to straighten out this crisis once and for all.

Meridian has two surveys coming out. Please take the time to fill these out. It gives us a voice to express our opinions about our working conditions and our management.

Meridian has educational scholarships available to SOCH employees. Check out the Meridian website for details. Also Meridian is offering a sweet deal for employees on Great Adventure discount tickets. The Meridian website also offers many other discounts and services.

Our next Rep meeting will be June 3rd at the Jennings Road Community Center. Please welcome Steve Stafford as an addition to our present CCU unit reps Carey Cranmer and Linda Palmer. We look forward to working with you Steve! We are always open to adding new unit representatives so join us at our next meeting!

The addition of refreshments and door prizes was a huge hit at the general membership meeting. Congrats to Anna Pona, Joan Deckman, and Holly Gallagher for winning gift cards valued at $50 each!

In Unity,
Julie George RN, BSN, CCRN
Grievance Chair Local 5138

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