Stanford, Packard nurses end strike, OK new contract
The strike at Stanford and Lucile Packard Children’s hospitals ended Monday, with nurses overwhelmingly approving new contracts that provide higher pay, more mental health support and what they describe as safer staffing for patients.
About 83% of the 5,000 nurses who had been on strike since April 25 approved the three-year deal that provides a 7% pay hike during the first year, and 5% increases in each of the following two years, the nurses’ union announced Monday.
Nurses also cheered improvements to retiree medical benefits, new student loan assistance and better access to mental health care — a key concern, particularly after Stanford nurse Michael Odell took his own life in January, they said.
Nurses working in areas with the most severely ill patients, which are often difficult to staff, will receive incentive pay and assurances from the hospitals that their patients will be covered when nurses need to take a rest break or eat a meal, according to the Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement, the nurses’ union known as CRONA.
“The hospitals have recognized the importance of their nurses,” the union’s president, Colleen Borges, a pediatric nurse at Packard, said Monday.
Stanford and Packard hospital administrators said Monday that they were pleased to reach the agreements with the union.
The result “reflects our shared priorities and enhances existing benefits supporting our nurses’ health, wellbeing, and ongoing professional development,” said Lisa Kim, a spokesperson for Stanford Health Care.
Nurses were expected to return to work on Tuesday.
The last CRONA strike, in 2000, lasted 51 days and cost the hospitals nearly $43 million, much of it going to pay for high-priced replacement nurses, the hospitals’ chief financial officer said at the time.
It was not clear how much the hospitals lost in the strike that began last week. The new settlement comes as nurses across California say the stress of their jobs has significantly increased as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and has not eased, because so many of their colleagues no longer want to work in hospitals.
Many hospital nurses say they are deeply frustrated about being overworked and understaffed that they receive relentless requests to work overtime and that they get little time to even use the restroom or take a needed break. California’s hospitals are short the equivalent of more than 40,000 full-time nurses, a UCSF study reported in August 2021, nearly 14% less than needed.
Nurses statewide are increasingly airing these complaints publicly as several hospital systems — including Sutter, the University of California and Tenet — are also negotiating new labor contracts.