The Union’s Bargaining Committee (L-R: Miriam Lexie, Traci Ellithorpe, John McGrath, Ryan Quinn, Michelle Reardon)

The union’s bargaining committee met with Providence Hospital’s management for the 10th bargaining session.  The union had previously provided a financial package proposal to management at the end of the last session.  Management’s team began the session today by providing a package counterproposal which addressed some of the union’s issues, but which ultimately maintained the majority of management’s prior proposals.

The union countered with a comprehensive package proposal which made significant reductions to our initial financial proposals in the interest of coming to agreement before the contract expires at the end of June, and received a counter from management that consisted of a $.05 per hour increase to their first year wage proposal.  All other items remained the same.  We countered with a $.05 wage decrease to our wage proposal for the last year of the contract, with all other items we had proposed remaining the same.

We are close on many items, and expect to use the next two bargaining sessions on June 28 and June 29 to close the gap and reach an agreement on the outstanding items.