Nonunion nurses at AHN to get a 7% salary bump
Nonunion nurses at Highmark’s Allegheny Health Network will see a 7% salary bump this year as part of a $92 million program to boost base wages and improve benefits for about 14,800 health care workers in the 14-hospital system.
Under the new initiative, bedside registered nurses will receive a minimum hourly base rate of $30, up from $28, along with other salary increases for experience; loan or tuition forgiveness for May 2022 graduates of AHN’s West Penn School of Nursing and Citizens School of Nursing in exchange for a threeyear commitment to work as a direct care nurse in the network; and other increases in the minimum starting salaries. A variety of enhanced lifestyle and career development programs are also part of the wage and benefit enhancements.
AHN said it would continue working with its unionized nurses and other caregivers on staff retention strategies. SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania represents AHN’s unionized nurses.
“We’re glad to see AHN leadership is taking some important steps to improve pay and benefits for employees, and we believe even more investment is needed given the tremendous pressures of providing care through the pandemic,” Katrina Rectenwald, president of the nurse chapter of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania at Allegheny General Hospital, said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to negotiating with AHN over how to apply this investment to ensure it benefits frontline staff.”
AHN employs more than 21,000 health care professionals.
The salary and benefit enhancements come as health care systems in the U.S. struggle with shortages of registered nurses and other medical providers, which have driven up the cost of temporary staffing, straining finances at many hospitals.
“The unprecedented challenges that health care organizations have experienced during the pandemic have only further reinforced how incredibly important our amazing, selfless caregivers are to the health and well being of the communities we serve,” AHN President and CEO Cynthia Hundorfean said in a prepared statement.
In 2020, AHN paid front-line health care workers $5 million in bonuses and set a $15 an hour minimum wage for all AHN employees.