We have heard from the nurses that Management is asking you to begin clocking in and out for meal periods starting next week. In looking into the issue, it appears that other Providence facilities have been doing this practice for quite some time, but it was not rolled out for Sacred Heart RNs yet.

We do believe this to be a change in working condition, so as a result a demand to bargain/cease and desist was sent to HR on Friday, March 15. At this time, Sacred Heart feels they do not have to bargain these conditions, so internal discussions are being had on next steps.

In the meantime, we ask nurses to comply until we can resolve the issue and get notification out. While we support honest time reporting, we do not support any methods being used for purposes of discipline.

In terms of waiving your second meal period, we are working on an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that will secure protections for nurses to be able to make their election to waive or not and change it voluntarily should they need to. Once complete, this MOU will become a part of the WSNA contract.

Questions? Contact Nurse Rep Jaclyn Smedley BSN, RN at jsmedley@wsna.org