"After more than seven months of negotiations, a five-day holiday strike and a vote rejecting an earlier deal, union nurses on Wednesday approved a three-year contract with Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.

The deal includes nearly 17% in raises over three years and stronger provisions aimed at boosting staffing levels that nurses allege jeopardize patient safety, said Mary Hodgkins, a member of the SEIU Local 121RN’s bargaining team and a longtime nurse at Los Robles. Several weeks earlier, the nurses rejected an agreement reached by bargaining teams, saying not enough was being done to protect staffing.

“We got a better contract,” Hodgkins said. “I think it was a really positive step forward not to pass the first contract.”

Read the story at the VC Star.