There will not be a workers' strike at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center today.

After months of contentious negotiations, the hospital's approximately 400 nurses and 120 technical workers voted Sunday to ratify the contract offered by the hospital's management.

Fonda Osborn, president of the local branch of District 1199 National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, said Sunday that the vote was "split" but that less than two-thirds of the union members who cast ballots Sunday voted to strike.

"We're not happy with the contract," Osborn said. "It's a take-back contract. We've given them lots of things, and they've given us nothing." But, Osborn said, the union members plan to use the alliances they forged with Santa Fe's congressional representatives during the negotiations to fight for safe staffing levels at the legislative level.

"Our people are energized and ready to continue fighting," she said.

Staffing levels were among the most hotly contested issues during the past three months of negotiations.

The new contract will replace negotiated staffing grids — which imposed financial penalties on the hospital for short-staffed shifts — with a staffing committee that will determine staffing levels. The 10-person committee will be made up of five members of management and five nurses chosen by the union. Equal representation on the council was an issue the union fought hard to win. The new contract does contain a provision for a financial penalty for short-staffing. If it is determined that the staffing is at least 10 percent short for a period of two consecutive quarters, the hospital will be required to pay $250 per day (but not more than $500 per day) into a fund that will be used at the hospital's discretion to fund continuing education for nurses. Formerly, the staff who worked on understaffed shifts were paid overtime for those shifts. The hospital paid about $720,000 in short-staffing penalties last year.

Existing staffing levels will stay in place for six months while the new committee is formed, according to union officials.

But other aspects of the contract, such as a clause that prohibits workers from refusing to work overtime (a policy that hasn't been in a contract at St. Vincent since 1974, according to union officials) will take effect today.

Most of the nurses and technical workers The New Mexican spoke to Sunday evening said they voted to ratify the contract to protect the union from falling apart. Several also said they voted to ratify because they could not afford to lose their jobs.

"I think if we strike, they will try to destroy the union, then we will have no voice at all," said Maureen Shank, a registered nurse who started working at Santa Fe's sole general hospital in October.

"We need to keep our union intact," said Donna Bentley, who has worked as an EKG technician at St. Vincent for nine years. "We live and work here, and we are not going anywhere. United we stand in solidarity."

One man, who did not want his name used, criticized the hospital for trying to squeeze the nurses, calling the hospital's actions "corporate greed hiding behind the moniker of Catholicism."

Sunday's vote puts an end to three months of contentious negotiations, which included two strike votes and one contract extension, and prompted the involvement by state House Speaker Ben Luján and other politicians in the final days.

The contract is for three years.

Hospital spokesman Arturo Delgado could not be reached for comment late Sunday.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.