After our landslide 99.5% strike authorization vote, the City was forced to get serious in negotiating and we were able to reach a tentative agreement on a new contract covering SEIU 1021 nurses employed by SFDPH!

Our solidarity, participation, and willingness to strike for what we and our patients need is what made this agreement possible during an especially challenging budget year. The City was forced to significantly step up wage increases to retain and recruit RNs and make some major movements on staffing, and offer more opportunities and incentives for P103s to become permanent, full-time SFDPH RNs.

Ratification voting will take place May 28 – June 11. View the full TA ratification schedule here. Your bargaining team recommends a YES vote. 

Here are some highlights of the tentative agreement: 

Wages

• 13% base raise all City employees are getting, plus 4.5% “market equity adjustment” for nurses due to recruitment and retention issues specific to nursing, totaling 17.5%. (See wage tables below.)
  • The raises are staggered, apply to all steps, and will compound to be worth a cumulative 18.9% by the end of the three year contract. Every contract since 2016 has included “off ramps” that allow the City to delay raises, but that has been removed, so these raises are protected.

New staffing

• 11.7 FTEs for Med/Surg
• 1.8 FTEs for Med/Surg break relief
• 8.6 FTEs for Critical Care
• 11.7 FTEs for Maternal Child Health
• 4.2 FTEs for the Emergency Department
• 5.6 FTEs for PES
• 1.4 FTEs for Jail Health
• 1 FTE Public Health Nurse for Maternal Child Adolescent Health
• 1.0 FTE for a new Nurse Educator at Laguna Honda

These new FTEs will be requested by DPH in the mayor’s budget pending final approval by the Board of Supervisors. When these FTEs are in the adopted City budget, due to the City’s hiring processes, they would become available to fill later this year.

Staffing & Nursing Practice

• New: DPH has long relied on overtime, per diems, and travelers to provide core staffing needs. We have a new process where each year we will be able to review objective data with the City and an outside neutral mediator to recommend hours worked by non-permanent nurses to be converted to budgeted permanent positions.
• Improving our ability to enforce staffing and patient care issues through the contract.
• Codify language about MERT and BERT to the contract.
• New protections on the introduction of AI in healthcare.
• Making the ED Staffing side letter grievable.
• New safety language, including requiring regular testing of panic buttons and reporting workers comp and CalOSHA data to the union.

P103 and Seniority Issues

• Steamlining reassignment processes and encouraging P103s to take permanent positions.
  • Changes to streamline reassignment:
    • Preference for P103 and TEX nurses for vacant permanent positions in the units where they already work ahead of other nurses reassigning in. The City has agreed to work with us to seek a civil service rule change to give preference for P103 and TEX nurses for permanent positions ahead of external candidates. 
    • The City will send an email once a week of all reassignment opportunities. Current permanent employees will have 14 days to respond before the City has the option to recruit from the civil service list.
• Allowing P103s who take permanent jobs to get 75% seniority credit for hours as a P103.
• Allowing nurses who promote to a higher classification (like nurse manager) to retain their seniority if they return to the bargaining unit.

Scheduling

• Requiring work schedules to be posted four weeks in advance.
• For the first time, defining our right to trade shifts in the contract.
• Going from vacation scheduling once a year to twice a year, to ensure more nurses get to take vacations when we want.
• Annual audit of parking passes to free up passes for nurses on the waiting list.
• Paid release time to take the test to get bilingual pay.

Contract Enforcement & Union Power

• Compounding interest on backpay for grievance settlements or arbitration orders.
• Increase release time for union chapter presidents and for steward trainings to build a stronger union.
• Quarterly report to the union of registry usage.

Tuition and License Reimbursement

• Increasing tuition reimbursement funds from $300,000 to $400,000 per year.
• Providing the union with a monthly audit of tuition reimbursement.
• Adding full-time TEX advance practice nurses to license reimbursement.

*Unrelated to negotiations, SEIU 1021 is working with Supervisor Ahsha Safai to introduce a charter amendment to allow permanent nurses to buy back up to three years of pension service credit for time worked as a P103. It will go to the voters this November.