As a leading academic health system and Level 1 Trauma Center, Cooper nurses provide exceptional care to Cooper’s patients, who include the most critically ill and injured patients in the region. Throughout our negotiations, the goal was to recognize the critical role that nurses play in providing the highest level of care to our community.

Therefore, we are pleased to have reached a tentative agreement with HPAE on Friday.  This tentative agreement demonstrates our commitment to Cooper’s nurses as well as to patient safety.

Cooper has had negotiated staffing guidelines in its nursing contract for more than two decades demonstrating its commitment to patient safety and its nurses. Safe staffing continues to be a priority for Cooper and this tentative agreement will make our guidelines among the best in the state.  Moreover, we believe this contract also makes Cooper nurses the highest paid in Southern New Jersey.

Key elements of the agreement include a one-time market adjustment plus 4% across the board wage increase each year of the agreement.  The market adjustment is provided to not only catch-up with the market but to make Cooper nurses the highest paid in southern New Jersey.  The overall wage scale increase of this three-year contract equates to an average of 27%.   These investments in our nursing workforce will enable us to make meaningful improvements to our recruitment and retention efforts. 

On staffing guidelines, we added 2 patients to 1 nurse for critical care (level of care) patients regardless of location. Additionally, there will be an average of 4 to 5 patients on medical/surgical/telemetry and oncology units. All these changes reflect Cooper’s commitment to appropriate staffing levels.  

The tentative agreement also creates a new committee on workplace violence that is specifically focused on nursing. Cooper continues to make team member safety a top priority.  As an example, we recently invested in personal safety alert system on ID badges for each team member to notify security and their colleagues of an unsafe situation.  We will continue to evaluate adding more tools to address the unfortunate reality of threats and violence which confront our team members. 

The next step is for the tentative agreement to be presented to you, our Cooper nurses, who will be asked to vote YES to ratify the tentative agreement.  

Thank you,

Kathy Devine, DrNP, Chief Nursing Executive

Negotiations with HPAE, the union that represents approximately 1,500 Cooper Registered Nurses, continue to progress. To ensure clarity and transparency about what Cooper is offering, we are providing you these details. It is important to stay informed so you can make an informed decision regarding whether you will stop working and support a strike. Remember, if you don’t vote, your opinion will not count. Only those who vote will decide whether there is a strike.

Some quick facts:

• Current contract started 6/1/2021 and expires 5/31/2024. 
• Negotiations began February 28, 2024, and we have had 9 full days of negotiations since this date.
• In the past, even when we were facing very difficult financial challenges, HPAE and Cooper have been able to reach agreement during union negotiations. We are working hard to make sure that this time is no different and we have a fair and reasonable agreement for both sides.
• So far, we have 14 tentative agreements, and we are close on other proposals.  Additionally, we have had very robust discussions on many other topics within the contract.
• For those of you who may not know, agreements made during negotiations are considered tentative until there is agreement on the full contract.  The final step is for the membership to vote to ratify the contract. 

There are many components of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA or Contract), but some of the key areas of focus during our discussions include:  Staffing, Wages, Workplace Safety, Health Benefits, and recognition for senior nurses.

• Cooper proposed making a commitment in the staffing article to include a staffing guideline for the level of care of Adult Critical Care at 2:1. We are scheduled to have additional discussions around staffing on Wednesday (our next meeting).
• Today, May 20^th, we reached tentative agreement on our Workplace Safety/Violence Prevention Program.
• Our current Economic Package included an average increase to the nurses’ wage scale over the three-year term of the agreement of 23%. 
• This includes:
  • a market adjustment of $3 to each step of the wage scale.
  • an offering of 3.5%, 3.0% & 3.0% increases to the wage scale (2024, 2025 & 2026) for the next three-year contract.    
  • maintaining 1% (or more) between steps of the wage scale.
  • ensuring all 32 years plus RN’s stay at the highest wage. 
  • aligning our new-to-practice RNs with the market.

• Cooper has offered a retention bonus for all FT/Part-Time RN’s.  Amounts vary by tenure.
• Today we have agreed to freeze health plan contribution rates through 2025, the union acknowledge that this is a big move and that other organizations are NOT doing this. 

Tentative Agreements as of 5.10.2024

Thank you,

Kathy Devine, DrNP, Chief Nursing Executive

Good afternoon.

We continue to make progress in negotiations. Last week, Cooper presented a package of three (3) proposals. 

In the first proposal of the package, Cooper proposal was for Article 33.2 Staffing. The proposal added language to account for patient level of care, with a focus on patients and clinical competence rather than physical location of a unit. Additional language was proposed to reflect staffing for Adult Critical Care.  

The second Cooper proposal of the package was on Article 10.2 through 10.4  Charge Responsibility. This proposal included clarification language around education on the Cooper Learning Network support from house leadership, orientation module on CLN, and competency assessment after shadow shift.

For the third proposal of the package, Cooper suggested language for a section of Article 36.3 Staffing Committee, where this committee would meet monthly and make recommendations quarterly.

In addition to the package of three proposals above, the teams discussed Article 7.6 Holiday schedules, specifically for PACU. There was clarifying discussion about current practice, versus an HPAE proposal to reduce the number of nurses on call during holidays.

We hope you find this information helpful. Please visit the blog regularly for future updates. Click here for the Cooper RN Connect blog.

Thank you,

Kathy Devine, DrNP, Chief Nursing Executive

Contract negotiations have begun between Cooper leadership and HPAE, the union that represents our Registered Nurses. As you may know, negotiations include two-way communication as well as give and take between both parties. It is important to us that you have updates and information during negotiations. In that spirit, we have created a blog called Cooper RN Connect.  

This blog will provide you with accurate and timely information. We hope Cooper RN Connect will be a helpful resource for you.

We wanted you to have the most up to date information. Please to visit the blog and check back regularly for future updates. Click here for the Cooper RN Connect blog.

Thank you,

Our goal is to reduce our current dependence on agency nurses. However, agency nurses help with our staffing needs. We have been working with agencies to minimize any unnecessary burden or untoward impact on Cooper nurses.  Over the last several months, we have worked with nursing agencies to address the following issues:

• Ensuring agency nurses meet the minimum clinical competency requirement which is: 2-years of experience in a specialty area and must have a minimum of 1 year at tertiary care / level 1 Trauma Center
• Screening of applicants for appropriate clinical skills using a standard skills checklist and interviews with Cooper staffing office and Clinical Director in specialty area 
• Holding agencies accountable for nurses clearance related to credentialing requirements and required verifications, i.e. NJ Licensure, certifications, education, and references
• Accountability process for agency nurse calls outs, canceled shifts, and lateness to include tracking and contract termination for excessive occurrences
• Restructure of agency nurse 2-day orientation in which this takes place in classroom setting supported by our nursing education department , minimizing impact on staff nurses. Agency nurses will still require a brief unit orientation and a resource nurse for questions
• Ensuring a escalation pathway in which clinical performance concerns can be addressed and when appropriate, agency nurse contracts are terminated for lack of skill, will and values
• Implementation of an Agency support Clinical Nurse Liaison to round and address nurse agency concerns / issues real time

Additionally, we have been working for some time on developing consistency with agency nurse unit assignment. This is to support familiarization of patient populations and their care needs as well as relationship building with Cooper team members.