After a brief one-week break, the Hospitals continued negotiations with UHW on June 30, and signed off on three additional tentative agreements and discussed some other not yet settled non-economic articles. The parties signed tentative agreements (TAs) regarding “Mergers,” and “Severability,” and signed a partial TA regarding “Stewards,” covering all but one issue. The remaining aspect of the article on Stewards relates to economics and will be handled during that phase of negotiations. The parties are also close to reaching agreement on the articles for “Jury Duty,” “Discipline and Discharge,” and “Resignation.”
During the session, the parties traded proposals on “Health and Safety,” and recognized that each side may be reaching its threshold of movement on the articles relating to “Leaves of Absences,” “Transfers,” and “Hours of Work.”
In an effort to speed up negotiations, the Hospitals agreed to move ahead with most of the remaining non-economic proposals as a comprehensive set, rather than individual articles. It is hoped that this will allow the parties to focus only on the sections within proposals that are not yet agreed upon. In addition, UHW stated that they would like to set a target date for a strike/ratification vote sometime during the month of August, although they wanted to keep the dates already scheduled through the first half of September. In response to a request from UHW that the Hospitals present an economic counterproposal, the Hospitals’ expressed their hope to present their economic counterproposal at the July 14th bargaining session.
The next bargaining session is scheduled for Wednesday, July 8 at 10am. We continue to approach these negotiations in good faith and trust that, with UHW, we will develop a contract that is in the best interests of both our Hospitals and our employees. For updates throughout contract negotiations, please continue to visit www.StanfordPackardFacts.com.
