NAGE R 3-19 held its first membership meeting for year 2008. There were many issues that were discussed and some of them are still in the process of negotiation with management:

 

The Credentialing Package (Vet- Pro) that was mailed to all the RN’s sometime in January is still in progress. NAGE met with management on February 6,2008 after filing a memo of Demand to Bargain. The union and management agreed to revised the contents of the cover letter and to follow the MOU between NAGE and the Department of Veterans Affair that was signed on June, 2006. This MOU indicates that the employee will be given duty time to complete the credentialing process with the help of  trained expert to assist . Local facilities will make available a computer lab, a pre-determined local times and OPF files as requested by individual employee for reference. Signing for Physical and Health condition of an employee

remains to be the disagreement between NAGE and management. As of this date, the union is still awaiting the formal response from management. Whenever that happens, each employee will receive another letter from management with new instructions on how to proceed.

 

D-FAS will be started formally sometime in April,2008 as per VHA directive. This is the new payroll system that all timecard will have to be done at 1pm the Friday before the week of pay period. All corrected time after 1pm will not be processed until the next pay period. Nurses are being encouraged to monitor their own time closely especially if there are changes such as ( OT, Holiday Pay and etc.)

 

Uniform allowance – although there was a Law passed in 2007 that uniform allowance can be increased to $800 per year per employee, it remains to be the Facility Director’s discretion to do so. NAGE has already discussed this issue with the Director. Awaiting for his decision.

 

 A second Agency Contract was hired to help the first one that is unable to meet the demands of the shortage of staffing. However, management encountered some problems the first agency that they are still working out. Until such time that the second agency will be able to help out with the shortage, staff nurses are continuously floating to other units on a daily basis.

 

 Parking in Baltimore site continues to be problematic with the Day Shift nurses. NAGE is very focused in trying to solve this problem.

 

 Some nurses raised a concern about a creation of a Rapid Response Team that was discussed in some of the unit based staff meeting. NAGE has not been apprised of this and if and when we get information from management, then we will proceed as appropriate.

 

Every one is being encouraged to participate and be more active in some of the union’s activities so we can accomplish more of our goals.