Nurses to strike hospitals again
Sutter, HCA walkout will be 2nd this month
Registered nurses represented by the California Nurses Association have barely had time to put away their picket signs from the last strike, and they’re preparing to walk off their jobs again over a long-standing contract dispute.
Unionized nurses plan to strike Tuesday at a number of Bay Area hospitals operated by Sutter Health, the largest being Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley. This will be the seventh strike against Sutter since September 2011 and the second one this month.
The nurses last struck at the hospitals on Nov. 1. That strike was supposed to last a day, but hospital management typically hires replacement nurses for five days and wouldn’t let the striking nurses return to work until Nov. 6.
Three days later, the nurses union informed Sutter that they’ll be holding a two-day strike at those same hospitals, plus Novato Community Hospital. They also plan to hold a one-day walkout Tuesday at two San Jose hospitals, Good Samaritan and Regional Medical Center, which are operated by another chain, Hospital Corporation of America. The nurses are targeting the Sutter hospitals, where they are working without a contract, for what they call the management’s demands for
“Nurses are trying to protect what they have. That’s what this whole fight is about.” Joanne Jung, Sutter division director, California Nurses Association
“concessions” in the nurses’ health coverage, paid sick leave and education leave, and for workplace conditions affecting patient care.
For example, Sutter management is propos- ing to cut health care benefits for nurses who work less than 30 hours a week. Sutter officials say they are doing so to comply with federal health care law, but union officials said the law sets a minimum threshold and that employers are free to provide more coverage.
In San Jose, the nurses say, the key issues are hospital management’s pushback on the nurses’ proposals for improvements in safe staffing and other patient care conditions, as well as employer demands for significant cuts in retirement security and health coverage.
“Nurses are trying to protect what they have. That’s what this whole fight is about,” said Joanne Jung, Sutter division director for the California Nurses Association, which is based in Oakland. “Why are we striking seven times as of next week? Because we have to.”
About 3,300 nurses represented by the union could be involved in the strike, but the number of members who participate in strikes is at dispute. Sutter officials contend that 20 percent to 80 percent of nurses cross the picket lines depending on the day and the hospital, but the union said compliance has been higher than 90 percent.
Sutter, for its part, plans to carry on hospital activities as usual, rescheduling elective procedures and appointments and staffing the hospitals with nurses from all over the country hired through replacement agencies. Once again, the striking nurses will not be allowed to return to work until the end of the five-day contract with the replacement nurses, which will be Sunday.
Sutter officials said the strike during the Thanksgiving holiday week won’t be a problem.
“We’ve been able to recruit as many RNs as we need,” said Stacey Wells, spokeswoman for Sutter Health’s East Bay region. “Surprisingly, it’s been really smooth.”
Sutter officials said a full-time nurse at the company’s hospitals makes an average of $136,000 a year. Union officials have contested that figure but said they have not made their own calculation. They have long argued that many nurses don’t work full time and that the strike is not about wages.