Management Attack: Management has disciplined a number of RNs at West Hills … most of which were unwarranted and nurses are fighting back. As a result, our Union distributed a flyer on patient care issues and new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rules that could be contributing to some of these disciplines. The flyer’s purpose is to make folks aware of different ways we are being called into investigatory meetings and our rights to Union representation.

We have three new stewards and the stewards are raising issues and concerns in their work areas. Monique Johnson has filed a number of grievances around issues in her area in Critical Care. Kathleen Burke created a form to document security issues in the ER.

One long-standing issue is finally under control and employees are getting paid for missed breaks and meal periods. Management realized that the Education pay codes they told RNs to use were wrong and the grievances around payroll errors have been resolved.

Staffing: Our big issue is staffing for Remote Telemetry. We are trying to work through the Staffing Issues Committee to resolve this problem. The hospital is understaffing units and we have filed a grievance because the hospital has failed to abide by the Catalyst Evalysis tool.