Nurses’ Union Approves Contract With Los Robles Hospital

THOUSAND OAKS — After more than a year of negotiations that at times teetered on the brink of collapse, nurses at Columbia Los Robles Regional Medical Center have ratified a new contract agreement, averting a strike that some have said would have left the center severely understaffed.

The tally was 89-0, with voting limited to union members, nurses said. However, the contract was expected to cover all of the hospital’s 405 nurses--a prospect that got mixed reviews.

“There is absolutely nothing in the contract that addresses staffing, which was supposedly of high interest to some nurses,” said Patricia Gautreau, an emergency room nurse who did not support unionizing.

Hospital spokeswoman Kris Carraway-Bowman, who declined to comment on contract specifics until hospital officials review the agreement, read a prepared statement Saturday after the Friday night vote tally.

“We are gratified to have reached an agreement with our nurses that allows us to continue working together,” she said.

The new contract calls for an 8.5% pay increase over the next two years. Gautreau said nurses had already been receiving 4% annual raises.

Some health benefits were expected to be unchanged while others were expected to be enhanced. But double-time pay for employees who get called in on holidays and those who work more than 12 hours in a shift may be adversely affected, nurses said.

Union representatives spent Friday afternoon briefing nurses on the agreement, which was formally reached during negotiations Thursday night. Friday’s tally was a vote to ratify the contract.

“It’s acceptable and answers many of the concerns we had when we came into this,” said Lesley Whitehouse, a Los Robles nurse for 16 years and an organizer for the union’s Local 535. “We were confident going into the vote knowing that it would be passed.”

The contract--the first for nurses at Columbia Los Robles since joining the Service Employees International union in October 1995--should lead to more efficient communication between hospital staff and administration to avoid any future impasses, union officials said.

Friday’s ratification effectively ended the possibility that nurses would stage a May 12 strike to protest what they characterized as ongoing staffing problems and pay disputes.

Union members voted last month to authorize a strike if their demands were not addressed and met by the hospital administration.

Carraway-Bowman said that hospital administration continued planning through Friday for a possible walkout so that the center could continue providing care to hospital patients.

If negotiations had failed and a strike ensued, the hospital would have relied on management and registry staff as well as other hospital employees to fill the gap.

“If it had happened, we had contingency plans to ensure that the patients’ quality of care would not have suffered,” she said.

The hospital’s labor dispute, which began more than a year ago, centered mainly on what union leaders said was a desperate need to increase pay to help fill 60 vacant nursing positions.

Those vacancies, union leaders said, have placed increasingly heavy demands on the nursing staff, resulting in deficient patient care.

They demanded a 5% salary increase along with a better benefits and retirement package to lure new employees.

Hospital officials, however, maintained that there is a shortage of qualified nurses nationwide and that increased pay would do little to fill the gap.

They had originally offered a 2% pay increase.

The dispute has also fractured the nursing staff between those who wanted better pay and were willing to stage a walkout to get it and those who felt that unionization was unneeded, unprofessional and would ultimately hurt everyone involved, including patients.

Metcalfe is a Times staff writer and Wolcott is a correspondent.