Message from the President

Hey everyone. Happy Spring. Our preparations for contract negotiations are continuing, and I want to tell you about some things you can do to help us succeed:

If you haven’t already, please complete the contract survey and encourage your fellow members to do it also. This will help us to ensure that we are making proposals that people care about, and that we are fighting hardest on the issues that matter most to you. If you think your department could use some specific language and you’d like to help write it, please indicate that in the last question.

We want members who are willing to talk to HPAE staff about how unsafe staffing has affected you. This is more personal than the short staffing forms (which are also very important). By telling your story, you will help to put a human face on the danger of unsafe staffing, and help people outside the union understand what we’re fighting for. If you are interested in talking to union staff about unsafe staffing, please email us at [email protected].

One of our members recently put together a workplace violence petition, demanding that JSUMC have a police officer stationed at the hospital, and place metal detectors at every entrance. Please sign the petition, and encourage your friends and family to sign it also.

Finally, reminder that our friends at SOMC (Local 5138) are currently in contract negotiations. Their fight is our fight, and they are setting the stage for us. If there are opportunities to support them, we will announce it to the membership. You can also follow updates from their negotiations on their webpage.

Annual Education Day Incoming!

Please join us for the HPAE Local 5058 Education Day and Contract Kick Off on May 7th from 9a to 3p. This will be held at the Spring Lake Manor, 415 Highway 71, Spring Lake, NJ. Enjoy time with your co- workers and union friends for breakfast and lunch and earn contact hours: speakers will present an educational program called Navigating Economic Insecurity During Illness, which helps healthcare workers to navigate and advocate available benefits for ourselves, our families and friends, and our patients. With contact hours attached, full and part-time members are eligible to use a paid conference day to attend.

If you’re there, you’ll also get a first glance at our proposals for contract negotiations this year, and you’ll have a chance to meet the people who will be at the table every day negotiating with management.

Register for our Education Day here!

Please also put these upcoming meetings on your calendar:

• Wednesday, June 4th – Rep/Contract Action Team meetings at 6pm and 730pm via Zoom
• Wednesday, July 16th – General Membership meetings in person at 5pm and 745pm, Glendola Fire House in Belmar

All members are welcome at any meeting! This is an excellent opportunity to stay informed, ask questions, and get involved in the direction of our union. We are actively looking for members to represent their departments as part of the Contract Action Team (CAT). With negotiations coming up this year, CAT plays a critical role in ensuring that our collective bargaining efforts are effective. Your involvement can make a significant difference as we approach negotiations!

2025 Contract Negotiations: Better Pay

As always, a big concern for us in contract negotiations is pay. Life is expensive these days, and we are not being paid fairly or competitively for the work we do. Nurses at other hospitals are making more, and we are the ones treating some of the sickest, most unstable patients. At JSUMC, the starting rate of pay for RNs is $42.19. At CentraState, it’s $45. At RWJUH, it’s $47.85. There are multiple examples of HPAE represented hospitals across NJ that make more than we do: Virtua (starts at $43.28), Palisades (an HMH facility, starts at $45.20), Cooper (starts at $48.72), and Englewood (starts at $49.10). The disparity in base wages is unacceptable. It is bad for us, for our patients, and for the hospital, which can’t retain experienced nurses.

We also need to see other increases. We will be proposing increases to the per diem differential, on-call pay, float pay, charge and preceptor pay. We will be proposing new incentives for picking up extra shifts.

You get the idea. Please remember that, like any negotiation, we need to have as much leverage as possible if we are going to get the best deal on the stuff that we care about. For us, leverage means everyone getting involved, showing management that this matters to all of us, and that we will do what it takes to get a good deal, up to and including going on strike if necessary.

Did You Know About These Union Benefits?

Being in a union has its perks. Here are some you might not know about:

Our local is part of the Monmouth and Ocean Central Labor Council, a collection of AFL-CIO affiliated unions in the area. Each year, the CLC offers an academic scholarship open to any member or child of a member in good standing. This year, the application for the scholarship is due on Thursday, April 3, so don’t wait! The application is posted on our website. There are also other scholarships available through our national union, AFT.

Through AFT and HPAE, all of our members have occupational liability insurance at no out-of-pocket cost. There used to be a small deduction for the insurance with each paycheck, but the union now covers the cost completely. There is a page with information about the liability insurance plan on the HPAE website.

You can find other information about union benefits on the HPAE website and the AFT website.

Some Recent Wins

A lot of the work of the Local Executive Board is spent on disciplines and grievances. Many people don’t realize how ridiculous management can sometimes get with disciplines until they are directly affected, and they also don’t know what we do to try to fix it. Here are examples from the past month:

A member was accused of “falsification of documentation.” Why? Based on information she was given by coworkers, she made a simple documentation error that did not harm the patient. She documented under her own name and did not hide anything. Management initially gave her a level 2 (suspended without pay, with the possibility of termination after management investigates). We filed a grievance, and got the discipline reduced to a level 1 (written warning), and she was paid for her two missed shifts.

Two of our members in NICU were disciplined for giving, or nearly giving, a baby the wrong milk. Like with any med error, our position is that if it is an honest mistake, and the nurse is honest about it, there should be a non-punitive approach. There were also mitigating circumstances, including lack of education, and systemic issues with the same warmers being used for multiple patients. We filed grievances, and both disciplines were removed. We’ve also heard that, going forward, management will ensure there are individual warmers at the bedside for each patient in NICU. This one’s extra nice because our work is directly improving quality of care.

A member was accused of “failing to perform duties as assigned or at the expected level of competency.” Why? Her unit was short staffed, and she and her coworkers were so overwhelmed with work that it was not physically possible for her to give an ordered medication at the appropriate time. She was accused of not documenting properly, even though she did, and not asking for help, even though there was clear evidence that she did ask her coworkers and ANM for help. She was given a level 1 discipline. We filed a grievance and got the discipline removed. This bullshit is another good example of why the fight for safe staffing language in our next contract is so important.

Candid Pic from the HMH C-Suite