Page One Archive

November 2007 — Page One, Issue 14

UC AND CNA MOVE TO FACT-FINDING

Panel to make recommendations for agreement on a new contract for UC nurses

UC completed its fourth and final day of mediation with CNA last Tuesday (Nov. 20). The bargaining teams remain at odds over a number of important issues, and on November 27 the third-party mediator elected to move the process forward to fact-finding. All issues contained in the parties’ final offers remain on the table including these UC proposals:

Competitive Wage Increases: UC offered market-based salary increases for nurses at each of its five major medical centers and ten student health clinics.

Continued High-Quality Healthcare Benefits at Affordable Cost: UC proposed that nurses receive the same comprehensive healthcare benefits provided to all University employees. These benefits provide a number of healthcare plans at affordable cost to employees.

No Substantive Changes in the Retirement Program: UC has guaranteed that nurses will not have to make contributions to the University’s excellent retirement system through September 2008 and again agreed that the University will not make substantive changes to the system.

A flexible program for Paid Time Off (PTO): The University’s proposal would allow nurses to take more days as scheduled vacation than the current program, providing nurses greater flexibility with their time. One-half (up to six days) of a nurse’s sick leave is put into the PTO bank each year, along with all vacation accrual days; and the other half of the nurse’s sick leave is placed into long-term sick leave bank. If the sick leave time in the PTO bank is not used by the nurse, it remains in their PTO bank for future use as either sick leave or vacation leave. Nurses who are ill for more than 24 consecutive work hours would begin using the long-term sick leave bank. Current nurses could choose to remain in the current sick/vacation program or enroll in PTO.

In the fact-finding process, UC and CNA will present their respective positions on the unresolved issues to a three-member fact-finding panel. The panel will then issue recommendations for resolving the differences between the parties. At the conclusion of fact-finding, if UC and CNA cannot reach agreement using the fact-finder's recommendations the recommendations become available to the public.

The parties declared impasse and requested the assistance of a mediator at the end of October, after six months of bargaining.

The University will continue to work toward agreement as the negotiation process continues. While there is no timetable in place, fact-finding usually takes from a couple weeks to a couple of months, depending on availability of the panel members and the number of issues before the panel. The next step will be the selection of the fact-finder panel and scheduling the fact-finding dates. UC will continue to update nurses as the law allows throughout the process.