By a 4-0 vote, the Cook County North Shore Hospital board voted to accept the 2014-2015 Hospital and Care Center Association labor agreement at its April 7 meeting. Under terms of the agreement employees will get wage increases ranging from .75 percent to 2 percent. Last year employeesreceiveda1percentraiseaspart of their contract they signed two years ago.
Registered nurses aren’t covered in this agreement. The Minnesota Nursing Association (MNA) covers them and that contract is still in negotiation, said Hospital/ Care Center Administrator Kimber Wraalstad.
The labor agreement runs from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2015. Highlights of the contract include agreements on union dues and union activity, layoff procedures, holiday pay, promotions, transfers, grievance procedures, discipline procedures, shift schedules, and on call rates, which will remain at $4.75 per hour.
Paid holidays include New Year’s Day, President’s Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Christmas Day and Labor Day. Anyone working on a holiday will be paid two times the regular rate of pay for the hours they work.
Paid time off (PTO) is available to all employees to provide them with opportunities for an approved absence due to illness or injury or that of a family member who resides in their household, or for personal business, which can only be conducted during business hours, and for vacation. PTO increases as employees accumulate hours for time they have worked.
Terms of the agreement state that a fulltime employee is one who regularly is scheduled to work 72 hours or more during a two week pay period and a part-time employee is one who is regularly scheduled to work at least 16, but less than 72 hours during a two week pay period. Casual employees can be employed by the hospital but don’t meet the criteria of full- or part-time. They can be used to work shifts and in situations that normally or reasonably can’t be worked by employees in the first two categories.
Employees with 20 years or more of continuousservicewillreceivea2percent raise in their longevity bonus for each year of this collective bargaining agreement. The longevity bonus is $2,208.16. Longevity bonuses have been granted to long-term employees since 2007.
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