Workers Vote Overwhelmingly to Ratify Contracts at 5 Tenet-Affiliated Hospitals in South Florida

January 1, 1970

By working together and staying the course during challenging union contract negotiations, nurses and healthcare workers at five Tenet Healthcare-affiliated hospitals in South Florida recently secured their first union contracts between their employer, Tenet Healthcare Corporation and 1199SEIU.



The contracts cover 4,500 workers at Florida Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, West Boca Medical Center in Boca Raton, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah and Good Samaritan Medical Center in West Palm Beach.



“I feel great. All of us did a good job, and the contract benefits everyone,” said Inez Bartlett, an EKG technician at North Shore Medical Center – FMC Campus, who has worked for Tenet for 20 years. “It will be good for us to have a union contract because it will provide even better working conditions and even better patient care, especially with staffing.”



The contracts, which were negotiated by union members who sat across the bargaining table from Tenet executives and administrators, invest in healthcare workers and provide for even better patient care and working conditions. These include.



· Guaranteed, across the board wage increases of 3% (2013), 2.75% (2014) and 2.75% (2015), and a 2.0% deferred lump sum contract ratification bonus based on nine months of employment



· The hospital cannot delay shifts by more than four hours and must give at least two hour notice. If two hour notice is not given, we will be paid two hours base pay as travel compensation.



· A seat at the table with management to discuss patient care through Patient Care Committees



· Employees will not be required to perform duties for which they are not qualified, and stronger training guidelines will be implemented for nurses who are transferred to other units



· More transparency regarding hospitals’ recommended staffing guidelines and protection for caregivers who report potentially unsafe staffing conditions



· At West Boca, Good Sam and Palm Beach Gardens, the hospitals will not change current floating practices with respect to closed units and clusters, and will meet with a committee of union nurses to develop written float clusters that designate when nurses can be temporarily transferred to another department.



Christy De Noble, a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at West Boca Medical Center, sees a great opportunity for caregivers to bring positive change to their hospitals. “As caregivers, we are committed to delivering the best patient care possible,” she said. “Who better than frontline caregivers to help make the necessary changes to help make our hospitals even better? My goal as a bargaining committee member was to make sure everybody in our hospital had a voice, so we can start realizing our potential as healthcare advocates. United, we can accomplish that.”



As the healthcare industry continues to change during challenging economic times, 1199SEIU caregivers like Ms. De Noble and Ms. Bartlett, and their colleagues, are developing a new way forward where hospital management and labor work together to improve patient care and share economic prosperity.



At a time when Florida’s healthcare sector has steadily grown despite a lagging economy, more than 14,000 private sector healthcare workers, belonging to 27 hospitals, now have union contracts to help improve standards, while answering the challenge to be at the forefront of the changing healthcare industry that is one of the fastest growing sectors in the country. Since December 2011, 1199SEIU Florida has secured contracts at 19 HCA-affiliated hospitals, seven Tenet facilities and University of Miami Hospital.