City-Employed Nurses Narrowly OK San Francisco Contract, 320 to 307
Nurses employed by the city of San Francisco approved a tentative agreement with the city by a slim 320-307 margin, union officials announced late Wednesday.
The nurses, whose pay was frozen as part of the city’s budget cutbacks, won an 8% pay raise for 1989.
“The closeness of the vote means that management will have the next year to straighten out the (staffing) situation at San Francisco General Hospital. If they do not, I do not imagine that our union could stop a strike,” said Donna Gerber, a spokeswoman for United Public Employees Local 790, representing 1,600 city-employed nurses who had threatened to strike Wednesday.
The city’s supervisors Monday approved the one-year contract, signed by negotiators early Sunday.
Meanwhile, representatives of 1,700 striking service workers met Wednesday with management of eight private hospitals. No talks are scheduled for about 2,100 nurses on strike since Aug. 2 at seven of the hospitals.
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