So far we have had two negotiations session with St. Luke’s Hospital. We’ve only been dealing with non-economic issues so far. We reached a couple of Tentative Agreements on some basic language changes, the most significant was some new language addressing safety concerns and allowing for the tracking of mandations and lengths of shifts. The union is fighting to get the language about “interest arbitration” removed from the contract, and to add “union successorship” language (which would mean that any new owner of SLH would have to recognize the union). So far the company has said no to both. We go back to the table on May 16, where we will begin exchanging economic proposals.
Stay tuned for the next update, which we'll be posting later this month!