Registered nurses at Allegheny General Hospital will be getting 3 percent raises each year over the next three years, according to the terms of a tentative contract reached with hospital management.

The nurses were due to vote on the contract ratification last night.

The contract, negotiated on behalf of AGH's 1,300-plus registered nurses by SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, is to take effect immediately, replacing a three-year contract that expired this week.

The agreement was reached Wednesday night, after three straight days of negotiation.

Yesterday, nurses praised the contract, saying AGH's nursing work force continued to set the bar locally in terms of pay, benefits and decreased nurse-to-patient ratios, patient limits that have been expanded to five new departments and now apply to a greater swath of the hospital's nurses.

The new contract also sets aside up to $300,000 into a pot of money that can be used for nursing education, training, recruiting or other expenditures of the nurses' choosing (as long as managers also sign off on the spending).

Pension contributions also were maintained.

The gains are impressive -- though smaller than the raises given out in the last contract -- and appreciated, said longtime nurse Cathy Stoddart, given the West Penn Allegheny Health System's financial state.

"Here we are, a system that's having financial difficulty, and yet we're leading in pay scale and patient care areas. ... We have a competitor who has millions and billions of dollars and yet we set the wage in Pittsburgh," she said, speaking of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The West Penn Allegheny Health System took a $27 million loss for the first nine months of the fiscal year that ended June 30. New quarterly results should be due soon.

The raises built into the contract come every July, with the next raises coming in July 2010. By the end of the new three-year contract, the average nurse's wage will be about $30.60 an hour.

The contract is scheduled to expire in October 2012.

This contract negotiation was far less contentious than the one that took place over the summer and fall of 2006. That one involved billboards, candlelight vigils and a strike vote over hot-button issues such as mandatory overtime (which is now restricted under state law) and maximum nurse-to-patient ratios (which is not embedded in state law but could be someday).

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