Local 5131 November 2024 Member Update
Greetings. We had our bimonthly Labor Management and Staffing Committee meeting and have some updates for you. Proper staffing continues to be an issue, however we are told that in the next month or so we should have about twenty new nurses off orientation.
Contracts and incentives should still be offered, specifically when there is a core deficit to staffing numbers. If your department is struggling with staffing and your manager refuses to give contracts when requested, please let us or your AVP know. Also, incentives should be offered prior to nurses being pulled or floated to another campus. See article 27.10 of your contract. There should be an email or text sent to your entire department offering these incentives. As of now, agency nurses are being used in some areas with severe staffing issues.
Elmer ICU has had their second nurse pulled on several occasions, which has been addressed and the danger of leaving only one critical care nurse in the department has been reiterated. We have been told the ICU staffing in Vineland has improved and this inappropriate pulling from Elmer should be resolved.
Surgical Services in both Vineland and Elmer have had issues lately. Elmer OR staff should not be pulled to Vineland to provide relief for lunch breaks. If they are pulled, it should be for a critical need only. We were told that assistants were hired to help staff the core to alleviate some of the OR shortages.
We are also working on addressing non-urgent cases that have been scheduled on weekends.
Currently, there is no change to the process for recovering ICU patients in Vineland. There are many rumors about patients skipping PACU, but there is nothing implemented at this time. If a new policy is brought forward then we will demand to bargain.
We urge our nurses in Bridgeton to utilize their managers and the supervisor to the fullest. If there are issues with 1:1s in the ER, make it abundantly clear when there is no staff to sit with them. A nurse should be the last resort to do a 1:1 after all other avenues are explored. The Mental Health Units also have new leadership, and will be reviewing the unsafe staffing ratios. Again, please escalate any unsafe staffing practices in real time.
If you are getting multiple admissions at once, reach out to the supervisor and request for them to be staggered. If you are the nurse transferring the patient out, please help a fellow nurse and delay the transfer if the nurse says they are getting two at once. If they can take report, you can wait to send them. Let’s starts helping each other even when management doesn’t get involved!
The work to repair the telemetry monitoring system has started, and hopefully will be done in the next week or so. Until then, we are still responsible for transporting our patients on a monitor. Those wanting to pick up shifts as a transport nurse do not need to be ICU, just capable of reading the monitor.
This coming year is going to be an eventful one for us. Our contract expires the end of May, and negotiations are usually scheduled to start the end of March. We will need help from all of you if we want to gain positive changes with this contract. Help can mean something as simple as showing up to a meeting or sharing our awesome red pens to make our presence known. The more unified we stand, the better our chances are at winning the best contract possible. For those who are interested, we will be having a special membership meeting in January to explain the process of negotiations and how we get a contract. There will also be a general membership meeting on February 25th.
As always, reach out to a rep if you have any questions, and never go into a disciplinary meeting without a union representative.
In solidarity,
Your Local 5131 Executive Board