A labor union is fighting for the right of some nurses and hospital staff at the University of New Mexico Sandoval Regional Medical Center (SRMC) to receive a wage increase that employees at UNM Hospital (UNMH) in Albuquerque and other clinics were given.
On Aug. 9, UNMH announced that all regular employees of UNMH and its clinics, including some employees at the SRMC would receive a 3% general wage increase. The increase comes as a result of a newly increased Medicaid reimbursement.
The wage increase did not apply to employees at SRMC that the United Health Professionals NM division of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is seeking to represent.
It’s part of an ongoing fight between the union and hospital administration over the designation of “regular” employees. According to New Mexico’s labor laws, a regular full-time employee is normally scheduled to work at least 40 hours per week. A regular part-time employee is hired for an indefinite period of time and is scheduled to work less than 40 hours per week.
Currently, AFT represents nurses and some hospital staff at SRMC, but would like to include PRN employees into their membership. PRN is Latin for “pro re nata” which translates to “as the need arises.” While PRN employees may work full-time, they are only required to work at least one weekend per month. UNMH administrators say they don’t believe PRNs fall under the state law of regular employees, and therefore should not be represented by a union.
“We believe that PRNs are very valuable to our hospitals,” said Chris Ramirez, director of communications for UNMH. “But we stand by state law though that they are not regular employees, and are not considered as such at any hospital in New Mexico. It’s a shame that the union is standing in the way of many SRMC staff receiving the same wage increase we’re proud to give our regular employees.”
Just before the public announcement of the wage increase, United Health Professionals of New Mexico sent a media alert criticizing the decision.
“This is a crass and petty ploy to get us to forsake our unions,” said Adrienne Enghouse, an organizer for the United Health Professionals of New Mexico in a release. “Having a union means fighting for a contract that includes not only wages workers deserve, but also provisions to improve the quality of patient care and working conditions.”
Kyle Arnone is the director of collective bargaining for AFT in New Mexico. He says UNMH administrators just want to fight.
“They [PRNs] work in the same departments and same shifts and they do the same work,” he said. “In other places where we have representation around the country, if we don’t represent PRNs, the hospitals extend it anyway.”
Currently, there are hundreds of PRNs working at New Mexico hospitals. According to Medicare data provided by Arnone, contract labor costs for SRMC in 2023 were over $11 million.
“They want to use PRNs to fill staff, but they don’t want to give them the benefits afforded to other employees,” Arnone said.
Ramirez says UNMH has reached bargaining agreements with all other unions that represent hospital employees, and AFT is the last holdout. “UNMH stands firm that we’re following state law.”