Nearly 300 workers at Sunrise Hospital secured a long-awaited union contract from HCA Healthcare on Friday, October 3. It will include the hospital’s first transparent pay scale, significant raises, protected benefits, committees to improve staffing, and more.
The contract represents an end to 13 months of negotiations between SEIU Local 1107 and HCA Healthcare. It covers a variety of Sunrise's providers, such as laboratory medical technologists, medical social workers, occupational therapists, pharmacists, physical therapists and speech-language pathologists.
Christina Hooper is one of those providers — she's worked as a medical social worker for 20 years, five of which have been spent at Sunrise Hospital. She said the contract would help ease the worker shortage and burnout currently experienced by staff.
“Being able to create this first contract that creates protections for us, that we can make sure that there are fair labor practices, that we are being respected, and that we can provide the care that we want for the patients without any type of penalty — it’s a momentous moment for us.”
Hooper also said that she's anecdotally seen this win have a positive impact at other Vegas-area hospitals.
"[Hospitals have] started to raise their wages because they realized that these people are important," she said. "So, it's been awesome to see that this is affecting our colleagues all over the valley, which is also going to help us get more healthcare workers into Las Vegas."
A Sunrise Hospital representative stated in an email: "The union was certified nearly two years ago, and the compensation increases and benefits in this agreement are consistent with those we provide to other health care professionals in the Las Vegas area. Throughout the process, we bargained in good faith and are pleased to have reached a fair and equitable agreement so that our colleagues can continue to advance the excellent patient care we are known for providing."
This current contract will be up for renegotiation in three years.
