After one year, we are still at the table in coalition with other public health nurses
Updated July 18, 2011
A change in the State's public sector collective bargaining law three years ago allows salary negotiations in a coalition format. All unionized merit employee groups within a band or unit of like jobs, once all are represented by a union, may form a representative bargaining team to negotiate financial conditions with the State.
The two units that affect PHNC members are:
Unit 2: Non-professional patient care workers, which is composed of institutional care classes including licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants, active treatment assistants, technicians, therapy aides, and similar classes. Our LPNs at DHCI are in this unit
Unit 6: Professional patient care, which is composed of registered nurses, public health nurses, psychiatric nurses, therapists, dietitians and similar professional classes. This unit covers our RNs I, II, and III (and APNs) at DHCI and in the clinics around the state.
In addition to ourselves, these two new "units" also include psychiatric nurses, therapists, dieticians and similar professional classes represented by AFSCME.
Our DSEA staff person (UniServ director), Toby Paone, is representing us in the current negotiations which are being chaired by Curt Ostrander of AFSCME International.
According to Paone, Unit 2 is going to mediation on non-compensation issues. A petition for mediation has been submitted to the PERB (Public Employment Relations Board).
Units 2 and 6 will probably begin bargaining this summer on non-compensation issues. "With the legislative session now over, I expect bargaining over compensation issues to commense sometime this summer as well," says Paone.
Financial settlements become effective July 1 of the next fiscal year, so the soonest a financial settlement can take effect would be July 1, 2012. In the meantime, we will all benefit from the 2% raise for all state employees which goes into effect 180 days from the beginning of our contractual year.
PHNC members meet with a Friend of Nurses
On June 29th, 2010, a very busy legislative day, PHNC nurses Carol Saint, Macy Helminiak, Lois Martinez, Nadine Henry, and DSEA UniServ Director Charlie Shaffer met at Legislative Hall with Senator Bethany Hall-Long. A long time supporter of nurses' issues, Sen. Hall-Long is a medical professional who is currently a professor of Nursing and Public Policy at the University of Delaware.
She spent about half hour listening to the concerns of the nurses around last year's legislation that changed the overtime calculations for all merit employees, including both the public health nurses in clinics around the State and those who work with the chronically ill patients at the Delaware Hospital for the Chronically Ill.
The PHNC nurses expressed gratitude that the overtime rules will be restored by the legislature: paid days off like vacation, personal, and sick leave will once again be counted as time worked for the purposes of overtime calculation.
However, the nurses expressed that there was still work to be done to make them whole. Some state nurses work a full schedule of 37.5 hours. Overtime, however, is triggered after 40 hours, so these nurses must work an additional 2.5 hours at straight time before they are eligible for overtime pay.
Nurses seek overtime for shelter work during State of Emergencies
Hall-Long, Senator Margaret Rose Henry (Health and Social Services Committee), Lieutenant Governor Matt Denn, and Secretary of Health and Social Services Rita Landgraf had already heard about the dedication and long hours of work Public Health nurses gave during the State of Emergencies last winter in shelters located throughout the State. They also are disturbed by the State's lack of recognition of this loyal commitment to the citizens of the state in the form of compensation: No overtime for shelter work.
The most egregious inequity was that other state employees were allowed to stay safely at home on state of emergency days with full pay but the nurses braving the elements working more than two days straight, confined to a shelter, were paid the same straight time pay as those who didn't work.
The nurses told Sen. Hall-Long that their union, the Public Health Nurse Council, was currently attempting to rectify the pay inequity through the grievance procedure. As always, Hall-Long told them to keep her informed about the outcome of this grievance, and about any other nursing issues of concern to the PHNC.
At the time of this posting, officials from DHSS (Div. of Health and Social Services) are having conversations with DSEA representatives on resolutions of the grievance on shelter pay. As of this writing (July 6), we learned from State Personnel that shift differential will be paid out for those who worked beyond their shift. The other areas of the grievance regarding overtime are still not settled.
DSEA represents the Public Health Nurse Council/DHCI, public health nurses and the nurses at the Delaware Hospital for the Chronically Ill in Smyrna.
