Six hundred fifty registered nurses approved their first union contract with Kalispell, Mont.-based Logan Health Sept. 16, an agreement that includes pay raises and seniority recognition, according to a union news release.
The agreement covers members of Service Employees International Union Healthcare 1199NW, who work at Logan Health in the clinics, hospital, long-term care facility, behavioral health and home care and hospice.
Under the contract, nurses will receive a 7 percent pay increase across the board, and a staffing committee of 12 union nurses and 10 managers will be created, SEIU member Amy Clark told Daily Inter Lake. The deal boosts benefits and includes seniority recognition for job postings and restructures, according to SEIU.
"By joining together, as nurses, as healthcare workers, and as a hospital, we can create the changes we need to provide quality patient care," Joan Siderius, a registered nurse in the Women's Clinics and member of the union bargaining team, said in the union news release. "We have the years of experience to make Logan Health great for our patients, and now we're finally being heard. We're stronger when we're all united in one union — and we're just getting started."
Hospital officials also praised the agreement.
"We held firm in this contract that wage increases and benefit enhancements for union nurses would not exceed those received by other Logan Health employees, and they did not," Ryan Pitts, RN, Logan Health's chief nursing officer, told Daily Inter Lake.
The contract with Logan Health comes two years after nurses unionized in July 2019, and months after a strike in June. It runs through July of 2023