A temporary check-in table is shown this week at Valley Hospital, where replacement nurses have stepped in for locked-out nurses. Hospital and union officials say they are close to resuming talks. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

Representatives of the Valley Health System and the Service Employees International Union were working Friday afternoon to set a date for new contract talks scheduled to begin next week.

Both sides said they had chosen a tentative date for bargaining, but they declined to discuss the startup of negotiations without confirmation of a specific day when talks would take place.

As talks over new negotiations continued, nurses had scheduled a candlelight vigil Friday night to celebrate their planned return to work today following a five-day lockout. The vigil was designed to "set a positive, patient-focused tone for (new) negotiations," said Shelly Mandello, a neonatal intensive-care nurse at Valley Hospital Medical Center, in a statement.

Valley Health and the nurses' union are in bargaining talks for a labor contract that would cover about 800 nurses and 110 technicians at Valley Health's Valley and Desert Springs hospitals. The staff members have worked without an agreement since their contracts expired in May. The two sides have tangled over staffing ratios, some job benefits and union access to hospitals.

Talks between the parties stalled on Nov. 18, when 98 percent of the union's nurses voted to reject Valley Health's final contract offer.

The nurses also authorized a strike to begin Monday, but they postponed the walkout late Sunday after Nevada Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons, Nevada Assembly Speaker-elect Barbara Buckley and Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid urge both sides to accept a 30-day cooling-off period.

Valley Health declined to take part in the cooling-off, and proceeded with contingency plans to replace several hundred striking nurses. The contingency plan was scheduled to end this morning, with full-time nurses reporting for duty.

Valley Health on Tuesday agreed to a new round of bargaining talks following a 41/2-hour meeting at the Clark County Government Center with Gibbons, Buckley, Reid and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman.

The talks will last up to 60 days, and the nurses' union has agreed to refrain from issuing new strike notices for the duration of the negotiations.

The union does not represent nurses at Valley Health's Summerlin and Spring Valley hospitals. It has contracts with St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, which owns three local medical centers, and HCA, which owns Sunrise, Sunrise Children's, MountainView and Southern Hills hospitals. The union is negotiating contracts for nurses at University Medical Center.