Oct. 29--University of Illinois Hospital nurses overwhelmingly ratified a three-year labor contract, the union announced on Wednesday.
Under the new contract, which covers more than 1,000 nurses represented by the Illinois Nurses Association, nurses will receive wage increases of 2.25 percent to 3.6 percent each year.
The union said 91 percent of nurses voted in favor of the agreement, and 9 percent against it.
The hospital and the union reached a deal last week, averting a strike that was set to begin Oct. 21. Among the sticking issues resolved were weekend shifts and patient assignments for nurses in charge of shifts.
The union successfully argued that if a nurse who is the "go-to" person on a shift has a patient, that nurse would have limited ability to answer questions and that could create chaos. The union also pushed back on the weekend shifts issue, but ultimately compromised.
Nurses get a minimum of 26 weekends off a year. The hospital wanted nurses who take off additional weekends to make them up. The deal: Substitute weekends would only start on the fourth additional weekend shift taken off, and it would have to be made up within six months.
Paul Clark, a labor expert at Pennsylvania State University, said hospitals have sought to lower labor costs by eliminating positions and increasing workloads, resulting in more nurses joining unions. About 20 percent of nurses are unionized compared with 15 percent in the mid-1990s, Clark said.
The University of Illinois Hospital faces revenue declines as more care shifts to outpatient settings and as the government and commercial insurers exert more pressure on reimbursement. The system reported unaudited revenue of $809.8 million in fiscal 2014, down from $814.7 million in the previous year.
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