6,000 Bay Area Nurses on One-Day Strike
Concerned over the erosion of quality of care and cuts to patient protections, some 6,000 nurses have been on a one-day strike today at California’s second largest private hospital and at one of its most profitable corporate hospital chains.
The members of National Nurses United include 2,000 RNs at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, and 4,000 RNs who work at nine Bay Area facilities that are part of the Sutter Health corporation.
Michele Ross and Elsa Matos-Leal, both RNs, summed up why they took today’s action:
Despite hundreds of hours of talks, this corporation persists with the
same hard line — pushing more than 150 proposals aimed at the heart of our patient advocacy and eroding safety standards that protect our patients.Sutter, not a mom-and-pop grocery store, hardly needs the sweeping concessions. It has amassed more than $3.7 billion in profits the past six years. It pays salaries of more than $1 million a year to 20 top executives, most of whom received pay increases of more than 100 percent from 2005 to 2009 according to Sutter’s own public IRS filings.
Long Beach RNs say they have gotten no assurances from hospital management for safe RN-to-patient staffing at all times and oppose the hospital’s refusal to implement safe patient lift policies to prevent accidents to patients and injuries to nurses, despite enactment of a state law requiring such policy. Read the rest of this entry »
UC Nurses Reach Tentative Agreement
More than 11,000 registered nurses at five University of California (UC) hospitals are voting this week on a tentative 26-month contract that, if approved, would provide for significant improvements for patients and nurses. The nurses, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU), began voting yesterday on the pact at UC hospitals at Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Davis (Sacramento) and Irvine, as well as student health centers at other UC campuses. The voting continues through Thursday.
Key highlights of the pact include steps to ensure that nurses have time for meal and rest breaks during shifts so they remain alert and stronger contract provisions for RNs elected by their peers to address patient safety issues with managers. Additionally, the RNs were successful in limiting future increases in costs for their health coverage and gained pay increases that will average at least 11 percent over the term of the contract.
“UC RNs will be able to provide better care for our patients with this agreement,” said Janice Webb, a UC San Diego RN, nurse negotiator and CNA/NNU board member.
It will also help us retain our most experienced, senior RNs who provide such critical support and education for the younger staff.
Delegates to New RN Super Union Set for Convention
A new National Nurses United union is holding its founding convention Dec. 7-8 in Phoenix. The new union is a joint effort by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), the United American Nurses (UAN) and the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA).
The 150,000 RN super union was proposed earlier this year by the trio of nurses’ unions. The 23,000-member MNA approved the creation of the NNU in October. The 86,000-strong CNA/NNOC voted to join the super union in September.
Says UAN Secretary-Treasurer Jean Ross, RN:
It is long overdue for all staff nurses to join together nationally to tackle health care reform that works for everyone, safe nurse staffing levels and giving every unorganized nurse in this country who wants a union the chance to join one. None of these goals will be met without the cooperative work of staff nurses, and we can’t wait to get to work building on the good work UAN nurses have begun over the past decade.
