CRONA
Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement
May 3 and 5, 2011

Happy Nurse’s Week
You are the backbone of the hospital. It is you who are with patients everyday and around the clock. You make the difference in the care that is provided to patients and their families. You are the best of the best. Thank you for your dedication, compassion, tenacity, perseverance, patience and continued support.

Please stop by the CRONA tables during Nurses’ Week. We will be there to answer questions related to the new contract and other work-related matters. There will be balloons, raffles, and other give-aways.

Thursday, May 5, 7 am – 10 am, at the SHC brunch, basement atrium.

Retroactive Pay
We hope the 4% retroactive pay from April 2010 to February 6, 2011 will be paid by the end of May 2011. We do not know if it will be a separate check. We will inform the membership if we receive additional information.

Educational Assistance
A nurse at LPCH who works 1.0 commitment now has $1,000.00 (similar to SHC) for education and CE assistance. The amount is prorated according to your work commitment. At SHC, education monies can now be used to purchase books, journals, and softwares that are job-related. The funds can also be used for travel and lodging when attending a course that is job-related.

Beware! Mandatory courses such as Healthstream are being deducted from your education hours. Some managers are also requiring nurses to attend inservices, promising nurses payment for their time, then deducting the time from the nurses’ education funds. This practice is in violation of labor law and our contract. Mandatory activities are paid by the hospital. Keep track of your education hours.

Obtain pre-approval from your manager before using your education hours and/or funds.

Reimbursement for education funds is processed on-line through Success Factors. You can access Success Factors from home by logging on to www.successfactors.com. The company ID is stanfordmed. We strongly encourage you to call the HR Business Center at 650-723-4748 if you need assistance in navigating through Success Factors. This is a Human Resources program. It is NOT user-friendly and the process is not streamlined.

Mandatory Meetings
Some managers are scheduling mandatory meetings without adequate notice. One of the forces of Magnet is engagement and collaboration. It is difficult to be engaged and to collaborate when activities are not planned accordingly. We encourage you to communicate in writing with management personnel when you are unable to fulfill management’s mandates due to inadequate planning.

Judge Rules In Favor Of CRONA
A U.S. District Court Judge has ordered LPCH to pay $71,796.42 for time spent in litigating a grievance that the hospital refused to arbitrate. The judgment will cover attorneys’ fees and other expenses incurred by CRONA.

In September 2009, CRONA filed a grievance with Employee and Labor Relations in Human Resources and the Vice President of Patient Care Services. CRONA was challenging what we believe to be the unlawful transfer of bargaining unit work to non-bargaining positions. The grievance was denied by the hospital. CRONA then filed for arbitration. Employee Labor Relations refused to recognize our arbitration filing dismissing the language in our CRONA contract.

CRONA filed a lawsuit to compel the hospital to arbitrate and the judge found in CRONA’s favor. Many hours were spent defending our contract. We asked the judge to order LPCH to pay for litigation expenses and the judge, in March 2011, agreed.

We will continue to protect what have been negotiated in our contracts and advocate for the rights of our members.

Magnet Survey
Take the Magnet survey. It is anonymous. To access the anonymous survey please click here