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CALIFORNIA

On sept. 22, California hospitalsfelt the Big One. Not your typi-cal earthquake, but 23,000CNA/NNU registered nursesmaking history by mounting a

one-day walkout at 34 Northern and CentralCalifornia facilities run by Sutter Health,Kaiser Permanente, and Children’s Hospital ofOakland—the country's largest-ever RN strike.

Sutter Health and Children’s Hospitalcontinued to lock out nurses for an addition-al four days, and one hospital another sevendays, even though nurses were ready toreturn to work Friday morning, therebypreventing highly experienced nurses frombeing at the bedside while the hospitalscontinued to utilize replacement nurses.RNs on Sunday, Sept. 25 held a candlelightvigil for an oncology patient at SummitHospital in Oakland who died during thelockout when her replacement nurse made afatal medical error.

About 5,000 RNs with Sutter Healthwent on strike to protest the hospital chain’sall-out attack on their nursing practice andeconomic standards during this year’scontract negotiations. Though the take-aways vary by facility, the Sacramento-basedchain is demanding a total of more than 200concessions by the nurses, with someproposals rolling back provisions that have

been in place for decades. Among the mostoutrageous demands by Sutter are calls foreliminating paid sick leave, which wouldencourage nurses to come to work sick andunnecessarily put patients at risk of infec-

tion, eroding nurses’ and retirees’ healthcarebenefits, and restricting their ability tospeak out for patients. At the same time,Sutter has cut unprofitable but neededpatient services by threatening to close

California Nurses Jolt Hospitals withMassive, Unprecedented Strike

NEWS BRIEFS

From top: Sutter nurses onstrike at Alta Bates SummitMedical Center walk the picketlines; AFL-CIO President RichTrumka fires up the crowd; RNsraise their candles in memory of a patient who died under thecare of a strikebreaking nurse;Kaiser RNs express sympathy for their colleagues

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hospitals that serve low-income communi-ties, closing birthing centers, eliminatingpsychiatric, acute rehab, and skilled nursingservices, and even stopping early breastcancer screenings for women with disabili-ties. Yet according to state hospital financialdata, the supposed “not-for-profit” chain hasmade $3.7 billion in profit over the past sixyears, pays 20 of its top executives morethan $1 million a year with the CEO, Pat Fry,making almost $4 million, and has mademillion-dollar donations to sports teams.

“We staunchly refuse to be silenced onpatient care protections,” said Sharon Tobin,a 24-year RN at Sutter Mills-PeninsulaHealth Services in Burlingame. “A commontheme throughout management’s proposalsis removing our presence on committeesthat address important patient care issuesand nursing practices. As nurses, we speakup, and we insist on standards that safe-guard our patients, but Sutter doesn’t wantto hear about anything that might cut intotheir huge profits.”

For the more than 17,000 Kaiser RNs,the strike was about showing sympathy andsupport for hospital coworkers, social work-ers, optometrists, psychologists, and otherdirect-care providers, who are also facingbig reductions in healthcare coverage andretirement benefits with the giant health-care corporation. Kaiser, though also classi-fied as a nonprofit, has raked in recordprofits over the past few years, netting $1.9billion last year alone.

“When we are all struggling to keep ourhead above water it is unconscionable forKaiser Permanente to attempt to extractcuts from frontline healthcare workers,” saidCatherine Kennedy, who is a neonatal inten-sive care nursery RN at Kaiser Roseville. “IfKaiser wants to cut, it should be from the 14

Kaiser executives who are making over $1million dollars a year, not the healthcareemployees who have devoted themselves tothe patients and the community.”

For the more than 700 Children’s Hospitalnurses, September’s strike was their third in ayear over healthcare and staffing issues. Theyare holding the line against healthcare take-aways that would sharply increase what theywould pay out of pocket, restrict choice, andalso make it prohibitively expensive to bring

their own children to their workplace for care.Children’s also refuses to provide break reliefnurses and refuses to agree that charge nursesshould not have patient assignments in orderto focus on coordinating care on the floor.

Together, registered nurses on Sept. 22reminded their employers that hospitalscannot run without their hard work. Whenthe strike started at 7 a.m., hundreds of RNsjust coming off their night shifts poured out

As testament to the growingnational power of regis-tered nurses, National Nurs-es United ExecutiveDirector RoseAnn DeMoro

has, for the tenth straight year, beenranked by a national healthcare industrypublication as among the 100 most influ-ential people in healthcare. She isnotably also one of only 10 people whohas made the list for the decade thatModern Healthcare magazine hasconducted the survey.

This year, DeMoro was placed atnumber 31 on the list, which is dominat-

ed by healthcare corporation CEOs andgovernment officials. As the sole laborleader named, she is also the onlyperson to represent direct providers ofhealthcare.

“We are enormously proud to seeRoseAnn recognized and honored yearafter year after year,” said Deborah Burger,RN and a member of National Nurses Unit-ed’s Council of Presidents. “It is both arecognition of her unparalleled leadershipfor nurses and patients across the country,but also an honor for a powerful and influ-ential national nurses movement that weare building together.” —Staff report

NNU Leader NamedAmong Most Influentialin Healthcare

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Floridanurses at oak hill hospital inBrooksville and Fawcett Memorial Hospitalin Port Charlotte staged informational pick-ets in September to call attention to under-staffing and patient care protections at theirfacilities. Management at both hospitals,which are affiliated with HCA, have refusedto convene a task force of RNs at the hospitalto review and recommend solutions tostaffing and patient care issues. RNs at bothhospitals have submitted hundreds of formalcomplaints, assignment despite objectionforms, to document instances where nursesbelieve the patient assignment compromisessafe patient care. At Oak Hill, for example,critical care nurses are often assigned threepatients, whereas many other facilities andthe California ratio law limit the maximumto two. At Fawcett, the spine-orthopedicRNs often have seven patient assignments,though standards elsewhere call for a maxi-mum of four. “There is overwhelmingconsensus among RNs that Oak Hill needsto do more to resolve systemic issues relatedto staffing,” said Barbara Hart, RN andmember of the bargaining team. “The exist-ing systems are not enough. An RN taskforce can turn around recommendations andstart implementing solutions with manage-ment. This is the bedrock of patient care.”

Minnesotaregistered nurses on Sept. 13 approveda contract offer from Sanford BemidjiHospital, ending nearly six months ofcontract negotiations that included infor-mational picketing and a strike vote.

“It was a long, tough road, but we havean agreement in place that our nurses canfeel good about,” said Peter Danielson,RN, chair of the Minnesota Nurses Associ-ation (MNA) bargaining team. “While tous this isn’t a perfect resolution, it is acompromise that helps put our patientsfirst. This new contract takes some impor-tant steps by offering a specific timeline to

help make management more accountablefor improving unsafe staffing levels insideour hospital.”

The current contract between thehospital and 230 nurses represented byMNA expired on Feb. 28 and negotiationshave been ongoing since early April. Nurs-es voted overwhelmingly on July 28 toreject Sanford’s “final” contract offer,instead authorizing bargaining team lead-ers to call for a strike.

Sanford Health, a growing corporatehealth giant that employs 18,000 workersacross eight different states, recently boughtBemidji hospital—previously known asNorth Country Regional Hospital—and wasnegotiating its first contract with membersof the Minnesota Nurses Association.

Texasthe texas statewide rn union negotiat-ing team met with negotiators for the fiveTexas HCA-affiliated hospitals and contin-ues to make progress toward a first unioncontract, in September reaching tentativeagreement on three issues: seniority, jobvacancy and posting, and layoffs and recall.The language ensures that the most experi-enced nurses are retained and existing staffnurses are prioritized over temporary oroutside nurses.

Veterans Affairsnnu va directors met July 9 to 10, inNiagara Falls for a productive meeting todiscuss NNU-VA issues. The highlight of theweekend was a training on workplaceviolence, covering topics such as the varyinglevels of violence, how to anticipate it, andhow to handle it. Nurses learned about modelcontract language addressing violence in theworkplace and protection of staff RNs, valu-able advice for the nation VA negotiatingteam to use at the bargaining table. VA nurs-es will be asking for a Nurse Practice Councilat all of our hospitals as a direct result of thistraining. —Staff report

of their facilities to join throngs of cheeringcoworkers who were waiting for them withpicket signs and steaming cups of coffee. Thestrike lines were crowded and lively; nursesbrought their kids, many younger nursesstepped up to lead chants on the bullhorn,and nurses showed up with endless trays ofhome cooked food to share. Strangersshowed up with roses for the nurses, and thebeeps and honks of motorists passing byfilled the air with a kind of music. “Whennurses are on the outside of the hospital,there’s something wrong on the inside,” saidDeAnn McEwen, RN and member of theCNA/NNOC Council of Presidents. “As nurs-es, we stand up and speak with caring,compassion, and courage. When they say,‘Cut back,’ we say, ‘Fight back!’”

Numerous labor leaders and local publicofficials stopped by the strike lines to showtheir support. California state Sen. LoniHancock, whose mother was an RN, swungby to express her appreciation for nurses.AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka alsotook the stage at one of the strike rallies toencourage the RNs and let them know thou-sands of fellow union members were standingalongside them. “RNs are the hardest-work-ing people in the country,” said Trumka.“You’re the last line of defense for patients andthere is no compromise when it comes topatient care.”

Kaiser nurses returned to work thefollowing morning, but some Sutter facili-ties and Children’s Oakland locked out theirnursing staff. When about 50 Children’sRNs scheduled to work reported at 7 a.m.on Sept. 23 to start their shifts, hospitaladministrators told them one by one thatthey had been replaced and were not need-ed. A large group of supportive coworkersyelled, “Locked out!” after each RN wasturned away.

“Children’s administration has decided tospend millions of dollars on forcing nursesto strike rather than on employee benefitsand safe staffing,” said Children’s RNMartha Kuhl. “They are taking advantage ofthe economic times and trying to roll backimprovements we have won over many yearsthrough our contract. Everyone deserveshealthcare and if nurses can’t afford health-care, who will be able to?”

One of the enduring slogans of the daywill be a message that hospitals, after thismomentous joint strike, won’t soon forget:“You take on one of us, you take on all of us.”

—Staff report

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WRAP-UP REPORTFlorida registered nurses

picketed and rallied for safer

staffing and the formation of

an RN task force at their

HCA-affiliated hospital.

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