The employer had no new proposals for us today. They did tell us they were sticking with their proposals, and rejecting ours, for Seniority, Job Postings, and Health & Welfare for Active Employees.
We did reach a tentative agreement on Grievance & Arbitration Procedure, adding a provision that would allow us to skip the first step of the grievance procedure for issues affecting multiple facilities.
On our part, we modified our proposals on Professional Hours and on Retirement Benefits, in an aim to reach agreement in these areas.
The Employer still owes us responses to some of our more significant proposals, such as:
- Paid Time Off
- Reduction in Force
- Provider Profiles, Job Duties and Workload Distribution
- Corrective Action Process
- After Hours Coverage
We are particularly concerned that they have not given us any response to the proposal we made on July 11 regarding after hours coverage in the ED. We reiterated today that we made our proposal because a number of facilities have failed to “minimize the use of a non-dedicated system” as intended by the current contract. We gave examples of how having clinical staff cover the ED is not optimal for ED patients, doctors, and first responders; increases hospitalization rates; negatively impacts the quality of care clinicians are able to offer patients on their caseloads; and contributes to job-disatisfaction and burnout.
Management acknowledged that use of clinical staff is not optimal and raises patient safety issues and hinted that their proposal would address these concerns. We reminded them that our proposal is simply — hire more dedicated staff, including per diems if needed and prohibit the use of involuntary call.
