ORANGE : UCI Nurses to Vote on Contract Offer

Registered nurses at UCI Medical Center in Orange will vote next week on a proposed contract that would give them a 3% raise this month and another 3% in May, as well as increased benefits.

The nurses’ two-year contract with the state expired last week while talks between the university and the nurses’ union continued in Berkeley. Earlier, the university had offered UCI nurses a 2% raise now and 3% in May.

Nurses at the medical center have said they would need at least a 10% raise to earn as much as nurses at other University of California medical centers. About 950 nurses at UCI are expected to vote Monday and Tuesday on whether to accept the contract.

Highlights of the proposed contract for nurses at UCI Medical Center include $100 a month extra pay for nurses with advanced certification in specialty areas and increased pay for working during the evening and at night, Maureen Anderson, a spokeswoman for the California Nurses Assn., said.

The proposed contract would bring the basic pay for UCI registered nurses to between $31,840 and $60,026, depending on experience and skill, and between $39,300 and $66,010 for nurse practitioners.

After weeks of negotiations, tentative contracts were written this week for nurses at each of the university’s five medical centers and various campus clinics, Anderson said. Nurses at all of the university’s hospitals and clinics work under the same basic contract, with separate pay and benefit provisions added for each campus.