(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - Nurse anesthetists at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center have voted to join the Alaska Nurses Association’s Ketchikan Registered Nurses Bargaining Unit. The new representation is said will afford the group professional advocacy for fair compensation and workplace conditions.

A group of certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center elected to join the Alaska Nurses Association’s (AaNA) Ketchikan Registered Nurses Bargaining Unit in a vote that passed Dec. 16, 2014.

The certified registered nurse anesthetists met with unit leaders from the Ketchikan-based bargaining unit earlier in the year and proceeded to file a petition for special election with the National Labor Relations Board in October 2014.

“As part of the Alaska Nurses Association’s Ketchikan Registered Nurses Bargaining Unit, PeaceHealth’s CRNAs will receive professional advocacy that will help to ensure the best possible workplace conditions as well as protection of benefits and pay,” said Donna Phillips, Alaska Nurses Association’s Labor Council chair. “Nurse anesthetists have an extremely important and demanding job to perform and it is crucial they are allowed to focus on their work and the safety of their patients. We are thrilled to welcome them to the union and look forward to advocating on their behalf.”

Certified registered nurse anesthetists are advanced-practice nurses who specialize in providing anesthesia. CRNAs are the primary providers of anesthesia to the armed forces and often are the sole providers of anesthesia in rural hospitals.

The Ketchikan Registered Nurses Bargaining Unit of Alaska Nurses Association is currently in contract negotiations with PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center. Alaska Nurses Association established its labor program in 1974 and has bargaining units in Ketchikan, Anchorage and Soldotna and represents 1,367 nurses across the three units.

Edited by Mary Kauffman, SitNews

Source of News: 

Thompson & Co. Public Relations
www.thompsonpr.com

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Ketchikan, Alaska

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