Albany Medical Center is giving the New York State Nurses Association until Monday at 5 p.m. to accept its final contract proposal.
Albany Med has been negotiating with its unionized nurses for six months, offering what it calls its "last and best" final contract after a Tuesday bargaining session that includes maintaining an open-shop policy, wage hikes and retroactive pay — if accepted by December 9th. Hospital President and CEO Dr. Dennis McKenna:
"We would immediately increase the starting rate for a newly licensed RN from $33 an hour to $37.50 an hour, and over the next two years, that would increase to $39.50 an hour. Also, when we look at our nursing workforce in total, including new graduates as well as experienced nurses, our contract proposal would see increases to RNs for base salary by, on average, 13% in the first year and ranges from 25 to 34% over the course of the next three years," McKenna said, adding that several other perks are included.
"Preceptor pay, which is a nurse who is responsible for orienting a new nurse on their unit, would be introduced. And premium pay, which is signing up for shifts that are often difficult to fill, would be reinstated. In addition to those economics, we would pay for uniforms at Albany Med's expense for our nurses. We would increase reimbursement for tuition and continuing education and advanced certifications up to $4,200," said McKenna.
McKenna says frontline nurses overwhelmingly favor the offer. He notes retro pay going back to August 1st when the prior contract ended will be rescinded if an agreement to bring the contract to a vote doesn't happen before Monday's deadline, due to what he calls "great financial uncertainty going into 2025 negotiations with CDPHP."
The Albany Med Health System filed suit against the health insurer in October, and says it could drop CDPHP all together in the new year. McKenna says CDPHP now owes north of $40 million for services provided in 2024.
In late November, Albany Med said terminating its contract with CDPHP would be a last resort. CDPHP spokesperson Ali Skinner contends the hospital is in good financial shape.
"If you look at some of the public facing websites, you will see that they are doing quite well. It is unfortunate that Albany Med is now using its long and ongoing contract dispute with the nurses’ union to once again come after CDPHP. The two are completely unrelated," said Skinner.
McKenna says nurses deserve the retro pay. "I hope that NYSNA will listen to our nurses. I know I have."
NYSNA members including Nurse Jennifer Kiehle showed up Wednesday to hear McKenna speak: "Security escorted us out. We were told it was a closed press conference and nurses are not invited."
Kiehle says staffing, recruitment and retention issues persist.
"I represent over 100 nurses in the NICU. Not a single one has told me that, yes, this is a great offer. We should take it. So I can say that definitely not all nurses are on board. The Monday deadline doesn't make any sense to me. Retro pay should be budgeted as part of something they've been planning to do anyway. So his reasoning for not extending that offer doesn't make a lot of sense, and really the issue does still come down to staffing. Dr. McKenna can minimize it all he wants, but over in the NICU right now, there are 19 nurses taking care of 48 patients," Kiehle said.
Defending staffing issues, McKenna cited a recent Department of Health "unannounced" visit to the ER.
"They were here for three days. They walked out the door, they said they found no issues at all. They issued no deficiencies, and they're extremely complimentary of us," said McKenna.
Kiehle says the visit occurred after Albany Med hired "a ton of travel nurses" for 13 weeks, giving the impression of full staffing.
She blasted McKenna's stance on keeping the hospital "open shop" and free of mandatory union dues.
"When Dr. McKenna says that it is 'all about nurses keeping their hard earned money,' nurses are paying more than $600 a month for family health insurance in their proposals, many nurses use Child Health Plus because they can't afford the hospital's insurance for their children," said Kiehle.
The next bargaining session had been scheduled for December 17.
