What a Difference a
Union Can Make

April 2000

In 1998, the nurses at Los Robles Medical Center finally got their first contract after an organizing drive that began in 1994. Nurse Leslie Whitehouse noticed an immediate improvement in conditions for nurses and patients.

"The union was the best thing we ever did. It's been a lot of work, but it has been great, the improved morale and patient care. People support each other and they feel like someone cares about their working conditions," Whitehouse states.

"The biggest change is that everything is more equal and standardized. Before, one unit got paid one amount and other units got a different pay. We got that straightened out. We now have a grievance procedure, so if a nurse is unfairly treated or evaluated she can do something about it. We had an incident where a nurse went on call after completing her shift. She got a call, and when she reported for work, management wanted her to work at normal shift pay rather than overtime differential. Before, they could have refused to pay her overtime and that would have been that. It happened many times. Someone would be out sick, and management would say, 'I don't think you were really sick. We're not going to pay you sick time.' They got away with lots of things like that, but not now." Before the union, nurses averaged a 2% wage increase per year; now they get 4% to 4.5%.

The biggest improvements have been in staffing

"The staffing in the nursing area has gotten better. The Nurse Alliance has given us lots of avenues. We know what to do. If there is a problem, we can say to management, 'The staffing is unsafe and I want the responsibility to be on you. I can't take care of patients because you haven't got proper staffing.' And then we can fill out a form documenting unsafe staffing and send it to DHS. Before the union, I'd go to work and I might have six patients, and they would be really sick, so I would have to ignore half the patients who weren't as sick. We didn't realize that we could do anything about it. We had no idea that there was a Department of Health Services."

According to Whitehouse, there used to be two nurses in the 14-bed emergency room. The nurses were supposed to take care of those patients and admit patients as well, so that one nurse was usually left alone with the patients while the other was working the admitting room. They now have three nurses. "That extra nurse really makes a difference," Whitehouse stated. "Morale is much better. We have more power and control over the environment. It's not perfect, but it's a big improvement, and a lot of it is from filling out the unsafe staffing forms."