Labor and Delivery Nurses Leading the Way! Management Moves on Staffing and Meals and Breaks

More than 1,000 nurses from OHSU made a clear statement during the survey to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) that using the “buddy” system for meals and breaks is not effective. OHA investigated staffing at OHSU and cited OHSU for failure to adhere to the Oregon Hospital Nurse Staffing Law for meals and breaks and they noted the citation reflected repeated non-compliance with the law.

Nurses in the Labor and Delivery Unit stood together this year in speaking up for safe staffing for their patients! Ninety percent of the nurses signed a petition to management demanding that the unsafe staffing be addressed. An association grievance was filed, and many brave nurses testified to the unsafe conditions.  Along the way these nurses were pressured and told they were causing trouble by speaking up.  But in the end, they gathered all the data necessary to clearly demonstrate the dire need in their unit and were finally heard with agreement from management for major increases of FTE and a promise for the first pilot of a meals and breaks nurse program at OHSU. These nurses are educated, empowered, and strong because they stood together, and we hope they are an inspiration for nurses across the hospital.

At the August Nurse Staffing Committee meeting, Chief Nursing Executive, Dana Bjarnason; and Doernbecher’s Chief Nursing Officer, Jane Russell came to discuss meals and breaks and notified the staffing committee they are open to pilot programs utilizing dedicated meal and break nurses and will increase budgets (HPPD and FTE) where needed to accomplish this. In the past, attempts by UBNPC members to run pilots with dedicated break nurses was met with management obstruction, intimidation, and retaliation. This is no longer the case, and UBNPC members are encouraged to think of innovative ways to solve the longstanding problem of meals and breaks. Frontline nurses know the innovation we need: dedicated meal and break nurses who do not already have a patient assignment.

For help with your staffing plan and designing meal and break pilot programs reach out to your staffing committee cluster representative or your ONA nurse practice consultant Matt Calzia at calzia@oregonrn.org.

Required COVID-19 Vaccination

Under Governor Brown’s orders, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has issued a ruling that requires all health care workers, including our members, to become vaccinated by Oct. 18 or six weeks after full FDA approval of the vaccine, whichever is later. The governor has said the mandate will include religious and medical exemptions, which we are awaiting news to learn more about.

Anytime a new rule/order/law is passed, as a union we have a right to negotiate the impact of that on our members. As such, we have issued a demand to bargain over this. Management will be meeting with us very soon to negotiate how this impacts our members. At OHSU, about 80% of nurses are vaccinated and we continue to strongly encourage everyone to get vaccinated. Across the state, the Oregon Nurses Association is issuing demands to bargain over this at nearly all our workplaces. We are hopeful that a fair agreement can be reached for how to implement this at OHSU.  

In the meantime, our AURN COVID-19 Monitoring Taskforce continues to meet with management over a variety of issues. We have discussed the need for free testing to be available to everyone on paid time due to the nature of our work, and the outbreaks that have occurred at OHSU. Management has issued a notice that any staff member may currently get tested.

Please watch for updates in the coming weeks. If you have strong feelings about the vaccine mandate that you would like to share with your AURN board members please submit them using this form and know that each OHSU nurse who serves on the AURN board will be reviewing all comments and feedback. 

Our board represents all AURN members and hopes we can stand together when facing times like these.

COVID-19 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Extension

On Aug. 17, 2021 we reached an agreement with OHSU management to extend our COVID-19 MOU until Sept. 26, 2021. 

For those that don’t know, an MOU is a legally binding letter of agreement that is as strong as our collective bargaining agreement. MOUs are used during the three years of a collective bargaining agreement to reach agreement on urgent matters that cannot wait until the next round of negotiations. Extending our COVID-19 MOU means many rights and protections have been extended as we face the current Delta surge. 

Here are some of highlights from the previous MOU which there was concern about expiration dates:

• Education funds: from 2020-21 will be extended for use through September 26 for education that was delayed due to travel restrictions this past year.
• Vacation: hours that have accrued in the over limit bank or holding bank shall remain in those banks for now, and be moved to the regular bank on Dec. 24, 2021.
  

All other elements of the COVID-19 MOU were extended as well. This includes management utilizing redeployments until Sept. 26, which given the current COVID-19 hospitalizations in Oregon and utilization of our COVID-19 units, we saw there was an urgent need. Our state is in crisis, and we know that your fellow nurses in these units need our support. However, we stood firm that these redeployments only be used for what they are intended, and they don’t last beyond the current surge without our union being able to reassess what is necessary.

We know OHSU has longer term chronic staffing issues, and these redeployments are not intended to resolve that issue.  Additionally, volunteers must be used first, and we discussed with management the need for extenuating circumstances to be taken into account, for example with childcare and other care giving issues at home.

You can read the full MOU here.

If you have thoughts about future MOUs or extensions, particularly around COVID-19, you can email the AURN board at aurnboard@oregonrn.org

Neonatal Resuscitation Program: Temporary Incentive MOU

We are in the process of negotiating an incentive for Doernbecher nurses to volunteer to get certified with the Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) so they can float to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). There will be a bonus for those that volunteer to get NRP certified. We are in the process of negotiating this MOU and will have more details soon.

For background, we filed a grievance more than a year ago about the forced floating of nurses to the NICU without management taking into account their training and experience as stipulated in our collective bargaining agreement. Management rejected our grievance at each step of the process and ultimately it went to a hearing before a labor arbitrator, because when our contract is not followed, we can seek third party binding arbitration. This arbitrator was delayed in hearing our case for quite some time with COVID-19 limiting arbitration hearings all across Oregon. But the case was finally heard and the arbitrator ruled in our favor, that management “taking into account the nurse’s training and experience” does indeed include making sure nurses who float to the NICU have NRP. Of note in the arbitrator’s decision:

“Section 7.13.2 is not satisfied by having floaters attend less acute NICU patients. The evidence showed that NICU patients are in need of specialized care. If they were not, they would not be in the NICU. Nothing indicates that only a certain few patients will need resuscitation, or specialized care to avoid resuscitation. "Taking into account" a nurse's training should recognize this fluidity in care demanded in the NICU, and should, therefore, include NRP certification before an assignment to the NICU.”-Michael E. de Grasse, Arbitrator

Due to this arbitrator’s decision, management is required to resolve this situation. We have discussed and exchanged proposals with management to create an incentive bonus for Doernbecher nurses outside the NICU to get NRP certified, and then be the only nurses that float to the NICU. We hope to have this in place as soon as possible, so that a properly trained group of nurses will be available to float to the NICU.  In the meantime, we are asking nurses to volunteer temporarily until this is resolved.  We are negotiating an end date, where no further floating will occur without the NRP certification.

For nurses in other units that float to units and do not have the training and experience including resuscitation certifications to be caring for those patients, we ask that you contact Amber Cooper at cooper@oregonrn.org and let her know the following:

1. Your name
2. Home unit
3. Unit you are floated to
4. Resuscitation certification that is lacking
5. Any additional information