NORTH PROVIDENCE – Union nurses at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital today voted “overwhelmingly” to approve the tentative agreement reached last Friday, hospital and union officials said. “This three-year contract includes a very competitive wage and benefits program that recognizes the value we place on our nurses and union members,” the hospital said in statement.
The United Nurses & Allied Professionals (UNAP), Local 5110, represents about 300 registered nurses at Our Lady of Fatima. Members voted 200 to 3 to ratify the agreement, which includes raises that will amount to 15 percent over the contract’s term; increases in shift-differential and on-call pay; dental coverage; a prescription-drug benefit; and tuition assistance, UNAP said.
“We set two goals for ourselves in this round of negotiations: to improve staffing and to secure a competitive wage and benefit package,” Lynn Blais, a registered nurse and the president of UNAP Local 5110, said in announcing the contract’s ratification. “With the unwavering support of our membership, we were able to approve both.”
Staffing levels had been a sticking point in the longrunning negotiations, the union noted. The new “groundbreaking” agreement will give nurses at Fatima “the right to appeal to a neutral arbitrator if the hospital continues to staff fewer nurses than the numbers that they have reported to the [R.I.] Department of Health, except in limited extenuating circumstances,” UNAP said.
“This contract balances the economic interests of our nurses with the financial capabilities of our hospital,” Fatima President and CEO John M. Fogarty said in a statement after the vote was announced. “It improves patient care and safety by introducing shift overlaps,” he said. “Just as important, we have created processes that will support constructive dialogue between the hospital and UNAP on the important issue of nurse staffing.”
The new contract “establishes practices to improve communication between nursing shifts” and adds “language to encourage improved dialogue on staffing between management and union, while preserving management’s fiduciary duty to operate the hospital responsibly,” the hospital said, adding: “We now look forward to moving ahead in a spirit of collaboration with our nurses.”
The United Nurses & Allied Professionals (UNAP), Local 5110, is a health care union for nurses at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital. Organized in 1996, it became part of UNAP in 1998. Additional information is available at www.unap.org/FatimaAgreement.
Our Lady of Fatima Hospital in North Providence is a member – along with the St. Joseph Hospital for Specialty Care, St. Joseph Living Center, St. Joseph School of Nursing and Southern New England Rehabilitation Center – of the St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode Island, a Providence-based health care system that is associated with but not financed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence. The health system and its divisions are JCAHO-accredited. Additional information is available at www.SaintJosephRI.com.
