NORWICH – The direct care staff at Chenango Memorial Hospital is protesting a new pay policy set to be enacted March 1.
Half of the hospital’s Registered Nurses Bargaining Unit 1199SEIU drew up a petition Thursday afternoon asking for a stay of the March 1 order. Union representative Jim Rundle said the other half of the direct care staff were upstairs working while the meeting took place at the Norwich-based hospital.
“It was the best turn-out we’ve had since the union was organized in 2000,” he said.
Nurses at Chenango Memorial Hospital say the policy will cut their pay while hospital administrators say nurses will be paid only for hours worked.
A program that was designed eight years ago to recruit nurses to the Norwich-based hospital offered 12-hour shifts for three days a week with a bonus of four hours’ pay offered by the hospital. Such pay plans were instituted in many hospitals nationwide to combat a widespread nursing shortage.
Community Memorial Hospital in Hamilton, for example, offers 12-hour shifts with three hours of bonus pay.
CMH administrators, faced with budget deficits, say they need to stop that program and that it is no longer typical at hospitals. According to Vice President of Patient Services Dru Cavanaugh, the direct care staff, and respiratory therapy, are the only departments within the hospital that get paid for hours that they are not working.
“It’s not our interpretation that they are losing pay,” she said.
A nurse who asked not be identified for fear of contract termination, said the nursing staff was already short and she knew of two nurses who would leave because of the change.
“There’s a nursing shortage. People drive from hours away. We are never going to get enough people to staff the hospital with an 8 hour shift,” she said.
“Everybody’s just like freaking out, having to find other jobs. It’s awful.”
Rundle said the nurses were notified two weeks ago of the change. While the hospital has 30 days to institute the new pay plan, he said the administration is acting too swiftly.
“They have 30 days, but they don’t have to do it in 30 days. Why suddenly do they have to make this change? If the hospital slows down a little bit, we will work with them, but if they try to ram it through, there will be conflict,” he said.
Cavanaugh said the administration is open to whatever combination of hours and days the nurses would like to work.
“There are all kinds of different staffing models out there,” she said.
Currently, there are four staff nursing positions open at the hospital and recruiting continues.
The unidentified nurse said she and her co-workers understand that the hospital is facing a budget deficit, but object to “taking the hit for the whole hospital - not the doctors, not the administration.”
When asked whether the change would lead to nurses leaving the hospital, Cavanaugh said, “We would hope not. They need to work with their union to come up with the shifts that they work.”