In April 2021, the nurses at Longmont United Hospital sought to be included in the National Nurses/AFL-CIO — a union of all direct-care registered nurses. While undergoing the process, Centura Health — recently renamed CommonSpirit — excluded Longmont United nurses from five pay or benefit increases. On Nov. 16, a court ordered for the nurses to be included in future pay increases.
The Longmont United nurses were excluded from the pay increases because CommonSpirit claimed they needed to maintain the status quo as the nurses’ unionization and contract negotiations were ongoing. The nurses won the unionization vote 94-93 in April 2021.
Matthew Lomax, regional director of Region 27 of the National Relations Board filed a temporary injunction with a district court to attempt to force CommonSpirit to cease and desist from excluding the Longmont United nurses from pay increases. The injunction also sought to order the hospital group to align Longmont United nurse pay with what other nurses in the network pay.
District Judge Nina Wang agreed with a prior ruling by an administrative law judge who determined that the hospital group was “engaged in discriminatory conduct that could have adversely affected employee rights,” by excluding the nurses from pay and benefit increases.
However, Wang did not order CommonSpirit to pay the nurses retroactively for the pay increases they were excluded from. While many nurses have left the system to seek out higher-paying jobs, 40-50 nurses remain. Without a retroactive pay increase, nurses at Longmont United could be paid as much as $6 less than other nurses in the system.
