Good Samaritan Hospital Workers End Dispute

Unionized nurses and administrators at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles have ended a bruising two-year dispute by signing a first labor contract, both sides announced. Nurses, who were originally offered a pay freeze, will receive raises of at least 7.5% over three years, with some lower-paid nurses receiving substantially more. A hospital proposal to cut premium pay for weekend work was removed. The contract also prohibits placement of “floating” nurses in departments in which they haven’t been trained and establishes a committee of nurses, elected by their peers, who will monitor patient-to-nurse ratios and other quality issues. The hospital’s 530 nurses voted to join the California Nurses Assn. in December 1998. Contract negotiations began four months later. The atmosphere has been tense since then, marked by pickets, a one-day strike, the temporary closure of the hospital’s neonatal-care unit and the layoff and eventual rehiring of 40 nurses. “It was a war zone,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, CNA director. “It was one of the hardest-fought campaigns I’ve ever seen.” Marta Fernandez, an attorney for the 408-bed nonprofit hospital, said Good Samaritan was “very satisfied with the contract terms. We feel that the nurses did the right thing and accepted a contract that was in keeping with our possibilities.”