ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – This month, nearly all of the staff in the UNM hospital system will be seeing more money in their paychecks. But, after several months of failed negotiations, there is one group that won’t.

KOB 4 spoke with a rep from the United Health Professionals of New Mexico about why their union was not included in the pay raise.

They say they were offered a deal they could refuse. However, a hospital rep says it’s not as simple as it sounds. 

“We are so excited to be able to offer this 3% pay wage increase,” said Chris Ramirez, director of communications for the UNM Health System. “This essentially affects about 96% of our employee base.”

One thing the UNM hospital system and the United Health Professionals of New Mexico Union agree on is that a pay raise is always good. 

“It’s long overdue, it’s much needed,” said Adrienne Enghouse, a union organizer with the United Health Professionals of New Mexico.

But, beyond that, there hasn’t been much agreement like who gets the raise. 

“For the non-union employees, that’s really easy, we just give them the raise. For the union employees, we have negotiated new contracts with all of those union leaders,” said Ramirez. 

Ramirez says this is the second raise in eight months for hospital employees. But one union did not agree with the terms.

“We just said, ‘Sorry, we can’t abide by that. We have to be able to negotiate a full contract,’” said Enghouse. 

Enghouse represents the United Health Professionals of New Mexico, who are under the AFT Union. She says the union wouldn’t agree to a contract that did not include PRNS, since AFT has several.

Ramirez says under state statute, PRNS are not “Regular, non-probationary employees.” 

“The hospital’s position is that PRNS are temporary freelance employees. That’s not the same as a regular employee of the hospital. So that has been a major sticking point to the hospitals. The hospital has said it is unlawful to include PRNS into your membership group. AFT obviously disagrees with that,” said Ramirez. 

“These people are every bit as much staff as anyone else. They just get their schedule in a different way. A lot work full-time, they have a required minimum number of shifts to work, they have a required number of holidays to work,” said Enghouse. 

Ramirez says no other UNM hospital union has PRNS, and that the hospital requested AFT to come to the table four times, but AFT would not.

“We agree on the regular employees. So what if we came to the table, and we created a contract for the regular employees. And then down the line, if a court comes back to us and says, ‘No, you do need to include the PRNS into that contract, into that membership group.’ Then, we can say, ‘OK, no problem. Let’s get them in,’” Ramirez said. 

Enghouse says the union turned the offer down, saying it needs to be all employees. 

“That goal line has constantly changed. This time it’s about the PRN, so it’s really at the end of the day, it them denying these workers the right to have their democratic voice heard, where they said, ‘We want a union,’” Enghouse said.

KOB 4 asked what could be done to come to an agreement. 

“I think we have something in common. Let’s start there. We both agree that this group of employees, the regular employees, should get union representation. So let’s start there,” said Ramirez. 

“They’re really going to have to let us negotiate the full contract that we are entitled to under the law. That’s all. They’ve done it for all the other unions,” Enghouse said. 

The hospital gave a raise to AFT union members in February, but says AFT filed a complaint with the Labor Board after the raise was negotiated. 

The hospital says its hands are tied to offer AFT a raise this month, and can’t do so until the complaint is resolved. 

Both parties say they want to come to the table to reach an agreement.