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RNs updated Thursday on status of talks
YOUNGSTOWN
Registered nurses at Valley- Care Northside Medical Center were updated on contract negotiations during meetings at 8 a.m., 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Thursday at the Teamsters Local 377 union hall.
The nurses’ contract with ValleyCare Health System expires at midnight Feb. 28, said Cindy Heck, vice president of the Youngstown General Duty Nurses Association, which represents about 275 RNs at the hospital.
“Some progress has been made in negotiations,” said Heck.
Talks began in early February. They continued Wednesday and Thursday.
At previous YGDNA meetings, the membership authorized the negotiating committee to extend talks past the contract-expiration date if progress is being made and to issue a 10-day strike notice to the health care company, Heck said.
Northside is an affiliate of ValleyCare, which includes Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren and Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Howland.
The contract that expires at the end of the month was approved in January 2014. At the time, YGDNA had about 390 members, who had been without a contract since July 19, 2012.
Eric Williams, YGDNA president, said at the time that nurses would have preferred a longer contract but that the pact protected nurses’ ability to have a voice in patient treatment and quality of care, and established staffing guidelines.
During the reportedly infrequent, contentious contract talks in 2013, there were two rounds of layoffs by the hospital and a one-day strike by the nurses union Sept. 24, 2013.
Upon returning to work, the RNs were locked out for varying periods of time ranging from 72 hours to a week.
At the end of October 2013, Northside eliminated 56.4 full-time equivalent positions, affecting union and nonunion employees as a result of combining several care units to improve efficiency. That followed the layoff of 77 full-time equivalent staff members, including six or seven registered nurses in early August 2013.