by Wendy Ruderman
The new contract includes increased safety provisions and covers 2,600 Temple nurses, technicians and other professionals.
Hundreds of nurses and technicians at Temple University Hospital approved a new three-year contract over the weekend that includes pay increases and additional security measures.
The new contract, ratified late Friday, avoids a five-day strike that was slated to begin Monday morning and would have cost Temple millions of dollars to hire temporary replacements, union leaders said.
It also represents a win for Temple’s nurses and technicians who had rallied for increased safety provisions and staff training over the summer as they recounted being kicked and punched.
The agreement ends weeks of intense negotiations between the hospital and union members with the Temple University Hospital Nurses Association (TUHNA) and Temple University Allied Health Professionals (TAP).
The contract covers roughly 1,600 nurses and 1,000 other medical professionals, including social workers and pharmacists. The majority work at Temple’s main hospital in North Philadelphia and at Temple Women & Families Hospital in the city’s Crescentville neighborhood.
“We are the ones who every day, a thousand times a day, give these patients what they need,” nurse and TUHNA president Marty Harrison said in a statement.
Harrison said her members had support from the public and elected officials, entrusting them to “make sure we have the staff, equipment, and the supplies to take good care of every human life, no matter what ZIP code they were born in.”
The agreement includes the installation of weapons detectors at Temple Women & Families Hospital within 120 days. Such detectors already exist at Temple’s main hospital. It also requires certified protection officers to intervene in violent situations and “functional and accessible panic buttons, surveillance, and emergency alert systems.”
The hospital said in a statement on Sunday that the agreement “reflects a mutual commitment” to fair and equitable terms, recognizing “the extraordinary efforts of our employees and supports Temple Health’s mission to provide safe, high-quality care to the patients and communities we serve.”
More than 90% of TAP members and 87% of TUHNA members voted in favor of the contract. The two unions are part of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP), which participated in the negotiations.
“The significance for many of us was the safety of our patients,” said longtime Temple nurse and PASNAP president Maureen May on Sunday. “It wasn’t just about workplace violence. Of course, we wanted to make sure there was lots of safety measures to protect the direct caregivers, but we also wanted to make sure that we had the proper staffing to care for the patients.”
The nurses, techs, and other professionals won wage increases of 3.25%, 3.25% and 3% across the three years of the contract.
