Your local unit leaders have been in negotiations with management in collaboration with the Cascade Valley Hospital nurses to reach an agreement that benefits the nurses during this unique pandemic crisis. You will be hearing much from leadership in the coming days of the negative financial impact this pandemic crisis has had on the organization as a whole. You have already received the email with anticipation of layoff or reduction of FTE workforce within the organization. We are SO happy to announce we have an agreement that will benefit the nurses! You can view the full MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) on this page.

Summary of the MOU highlights the following benefits

• Provision of appropriate PPE
• Absences during this time do not count towards attendance discipline.
• Employees may volunteer for standby unemployment or Shared Work programs.
• Utilization of Standby or Shared Work does not affect seniority.
• Employees on Standby or Shared Work have maintenance of benefits and retirement plan
• Voluntary floating to Cascade hospital with additional $2 per hour.
• Employer commitment to not contest any Unemployment / Standby claims
• Additional options for annual leave cash out during COVID
• Increased access to COVID testing as well as increased prompt notification of potential exposure.

Your team put in long hours on Zoom working on this for all of you and were successful in preventing the unreasonable demands management had wanted to impose. We are happy with this agreement in the current climate and are pleased to note the duration of this agreement is only 2 months (with an option to extend an additional 30 days depending on the COVID Crisis status). As always please reach out to a local unit officer for any questions or concerns or contact your nurse representative.