For Immediate Release
Sept. 5, 2024
Shane Youtz
shane@youtzvaldez.com
505-980-1590
RIO RANCHO, N.M.—In a major win today for the union representing workers at the University of New Mexico Sandoval Regional Medical Center, a district court judge denied the hospital’s request to not have to bargain, despite the hospital’s persistent public insistence that it was willing to come to the contract negotiations table.
Second Judicial District Court Judge Nancy Franchini today denied UNM SRMC’s request to delay bargaining, writing: “The Court concludes that the only injury [UNM SRMC] has demonstrated is continuing negotiation, which is not substantial. … The Court concludes that a stay in this matter is not warranted.”
The ruling echoes the state’s Public Employee Labor Relations Board order that the hospital must bargain with the United Health Professionals of New Mexico, which represents the UNM SRMC workers.
UNM SRMC has championed the false narrative to the media and its employees that it is willing to bargain, yet it filed a court motion on June 6 asking Franchini to relieve it from the duty to bargain, arguing: “If the PELRB’s order is not stayed, UNM SRMC will be required to negotiate and, potentially, ratify a collective bargaining agreement. … The negotiation process inherently creates expense and disruption for an employer and UNM SRMC is no exception.”
Shane Youtz, lawyer for the United Health Professionals of New Mexico, hailed the ruling.
“UNM SRMC has run out of excuses to avoid the bargaining table. The court has told them that they must bargain with the union on all terms and conditions of employment, including the PRNs with the other nurses and health professionals in a contract,” Youtz said. “It is hard to believe that a public institution has misrepresented itself to the public. They keep saying they want to bargain, all the while using the legal system to do the opposite—to stop bargaining. That charade comes to an end today.”
Franchini’s ruling removes all disputes about whether UNM SRMC must bargain immediately over all bargaining issues, including allowing PRNs to be included in the bargaining unit. PRNs are directly employed by the hospital and are used on an as-needed basis to fill a vacancy or gap in a schedule. They work on a continuous basis, the court wrote, and must be available to work at least eight hours per week. “PRNs and other employees all perform the same work, and are not contract employees,” Franchini wrote, denying the hospital’s contention that they should be considered freelance or temporary workers.
Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, the parent union of UHPNM, said the hospital’s ongoing litigation to avoid bargaining has put patients in jeopardy.
“Our members as represented by their union have had one goal—to secure fairness in the workplace for the work they do and the patients they serve. Our union has worked for over two years to meet at the bargaining table and problem solve on ways to improve patient and working conditions. This shouldn’t have been controversial; this should have always been something the hospital would want as well. Patients deserve a well-staffed hospital, and workers deserve conditions that encourage them to stay and be able to do the kind of job they were trained to perform,” Weingarten said. The AFT is the nation’s second-largest healthcare union.
“We are ready and anxious to get to the bargaining table to discuss critically important issues, like coming up with solutions to reversing the devastating staff shortage that is hampering patient and working conditions,” Youtz said. “We offered to meet them today to begin bargaining, but they declined again.”
The union also continues to ask for the 3 percent pay raise that the University of New Mexico Health System has given to its other workers.
In another ruling today, the state Public Employee Labor Relations Board affirmed an order allowing union staffers in break rooms and allowed lead organizer Adrienne Enghouse, R.N., to enter UNM SRMC. However, the union attempted today to come to the hospital to represent its members but once again, the hospital denied union access as ordered by the state Labor Board.
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