Pottstown Hospital nurses approve new 3-year contract, avoiding a strike
Pottstown Nurses United had set an Aug. 6 deadline to authorize a strike if it did not have a new deal.
Nearly 300 unionized nurses at Pottstown Hospital voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to approve a new three-year contract on the eve of a strike deadline.
Members of Pottstown Nurses United, the union representing nurses at the Montgomery County hospital, ratified the contract with 96% voting in favor.
After more than nine months of bargaining with the hospital’s leadership, the nurses’ union last week set an Aug. 6 deadline to either approve a contract or authorize a strike.
Union leaders said the new contract is a “hard-fought win for front-line RNs” and for patients.
“This contract, so long in the making, prioritizes nurse retention and wages and working conditions to attract new hires to the bedside,” Pottstown United president Lori Domin said in a news release.
Pottstown Nurses United is part of Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, an 11,000-member union known as PASNAP. A union spokesperson provided contract details in an email to The Inquirer on Thursday:
Wage increases, including automatic pay raises tied to experience.
Full-time employees will receive a $1,600 ratification bonus. Part-time and per diem workers will receive $1,100.
Nurses who are trained and skilled in a specialty, such as intensive care or emergency medicine, cannot be reassigned to units or patients outside their area of expertise.
A pledge by hospital administrators to maintain safe staffing levels.
A renewed and revamped commitment by the hospital to monitor, investigate, and prevent workplace violence, which has escalated in hospitals locally and nationally.
“When hospitals struggle to recruit and retain healthcare workers, it’s patients who feel the consequences,” said PASNAP President Maureen May, a longtime NICU nurse at Temple University Hospital. “When we invest in caregivers, we are directly investing in the quality of care our patients receive.”
Philadelphia-area hospitals and medical facilities nationwide have struggled with a shortage of bedside nurses in the wake of the pandemic.
“It took nine long months to get here,” Pottstown Hospital orthopedic nurse Diana Pagnotti said, “but for what it means for our patients, for our community, and for each other, it was worth it.”
In a statement Thursday, Tower Health, a nonprofit corporation that acquired Pottstown Hospital in 2017, said it was pleased to come to an agreement:
“We deeply appreciate the dedication of our nurses and all caregivers to delivering high-quality care, and we look forward to working collaboratively under this new agreement to advance the health and well-being of the communities we serve.”