Sharp HealthCare announced in a short statement Friday that it has reached a tentative agreement with the United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals, the union that represents about 5,800 registered nurses who work for the region\u2019s largest medical provider.<\/p>\n
A union spokesperson confirmed that the deal, which was preceded by a three-day strike in late November, has been reached but provided no additional details on specific terms. Sharp\u2019s statement indicates that \u201ckey elements of the four-year agreement include pay increases for all bargaining unit registered nurses, enhanced extended sick leave benefits and improved retiree medical benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis milestone reflects our shared commitment to our nurses,\u201d said Susan Stone, Sharp\u2019s senior vice president of health system operations and chief nursing executive. \u201cWe are especially grateful to all those who worked so hard to ensure a strong and fair contract for Sharp nurses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrea Muir, a Sharp resource nurse and local union president, said in an email: \u201cThis was a big win not just for Sharp registered nurses but for Sharp\u2019s patients and the San Diego community. We addressed outstanding sick leave, wage, and retirement issues in a manner that benefits both patients and nurses. We would never have gotten this far without the solidarity and hard work of Sharp RNs, who stood strong together and would not give up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In November, Stone said that Sharp\u2019s proposal included guaranteed pay increases totaling more than 16% over four years with nearly 10% of that amount paid in the first two years. Union members on the picket line did not state exactly what number they were looking for, though they said that they sought an increase similar to the one received by nurses at UC San Diego Health. That raise was reported<\/a> to reach 18.5% over four years.<\/p>\n Sharp nurses also demanded that annual sick leave allotments be granted at the beginning of each calendar year, rather than accruing time with each hour worked. Sharp, which was forced to bring in more than 950 workers during the strike, appeared to have already conceded to the sick leave demand as the strike entered its first day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sharp HealthCare announced in a short statement Friday that it has reached a tentative agreement with the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,1570,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-128493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-county","15":"tag-san-diego-headlines","16":"tag-san-diego-news","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}