Includes retroactive pay, higher wages, and lower health care costs

April 24, 2008

After union members at the Jefferson Healthcare Clinics voted on April 15th to reject a contract offer from the employer, we returned to negotiating — and the union bargaining team came back with a stronger offer.

New: Retroactive Pay

Based on feedback from the vote meetings, we re-negotiated the proposal to provide retroactive pay. Come to the vote meeting to learn full details.

Solid Wage Increases and Other Improvements Remain

Wage Increases: The retroactive pay is the major change to the tentative agreement we voted on previously. The proposed wage increases remain the same: 2.5% to 11.5% for most classifications this year, and as much as 13% for RNs. Over the 3-year life of the contract, employees will see total wage increases of between 8% to 14% for most classifications and 13% to 20% for RNs. The proposed agreement would also add 3 additional wage steps — Step 17, 19, and 21 — over the life of the contract to better reward long-term employees.

Lower Health Care Costs and Other Improvements: Clinic employees will see cost reductions for health care this year and next year. We negotiated increases in weekend premiums, and a new half-day holiday for Christmas Eve. We also added a new Interpreter premium.