Nurses at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford will begin voting later this week on whether to accept their new labor contract with the hospital’s administration.

The vote will be begin Friday, at a time to be determined, and end 5 p.m. Monday, according to Kevin Mealy, a spokesperson for the Oregon Nurses Association, which represents more than 900 nurses at the hospital.

Almost four months after negotiations began in early July, a tentative agreement on the contract was reached around 4 a.m. Oct. 27, Mealy said.

If approved, it will raise nurses’ wages by $10 an hour retroactive to Sept. 30, when the current collective bargaining agreement expired. Nurses will get a 4% cost-of-living increase in 2024, followed by another 4% increase in 2025.

The new contract caps the number of travel nurses the hospital can hire at 10% of ONA-represented nurses at the hospital. It also requires travel nurses to become staff nurses if they work 12 months or more at Rogue Regional in an 18-month period.

The agreement does not directly address what many nurses believe to be unsafe staffing levels at the hospital.

It also doesn’t offer improved health benefits, though it does create an Asante-wide “benefits council” for nurses to discuss concerns with their health plans.

A new labor contract would expire October 2026.