Nurses and other unionized health care employees at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital approved a five-year contract with Lifespan, averting another strike.
The agreement between the state’s largest hospital system and the Local 5098 of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals Union, or UNAP, includes across-the-board pay raises, retirement benefits, and the creation of a labor-management working group to address the union’s concerns about staffing, supplies and equipment.
The five-year agreement — the first of that length in the company’s history — offers “lots of benefits …for stability” for the company and its employees, Jane Bruno, a Lifespan spokeswoman, said Thursday. “We’re very pleased with the contract… and we’re glad to they’re back.”
The previous, three-year contract expired June 30.
The new contract provides for pay raises in 15-month increments starting at 2.75 percent after the contract is ratified, according to Lifespan. During the next two 15-month pay periods, the raises drop to 2.5 percent, and then bump up again to 2.75 percent in the contract’s final 15 months.
A previous three-year proposal which Lifespan said UNAP had rejected would have provided for 3.5 percent raises for nurses with less than 10 years of services during the first year, followed by raises of 2.5 percent and 2.1 percent. The same agreement would have given more senior nurses annual increases of 2 percent.
In both contracts the pay raises are in addition to 4 percent “step increases” given to employees with less than 10 years on the job. The new contract also provides for additional step increases when employees hit 11 years and 25 years of service, according to Lifespan.
The agreement also allows employees to keep their same retirement benefits or move to the hospital’s 401-K plan, for which the company provides a guaranteed match of up to 6 percent.
The agreement follows a three-day strike and a one-day lockout that ended July 27th with the union considering issuing another notice to strike.
UNAP represents more than 2,400 nurses and other non-physician health care workers employed by Lifespan.
