Striking Sutter Nurses Rally at Mills-Peninsula Hospital

Nearly 5,000 RNs from 13 Sutter Health facilities concluded their two-day strike with rallies at St. Luke’s Hospital and Mills-Peninsula Medical Center. The pickets came one day after 500 RNs descended on California Pacific Medical Center’s California Campus to press their case for significant improvements in patient care and patient safety at the hospital chain and for a fair contract for nurses.

Several hundred nurses rallied at Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame, where San Mateo County Central Labor Council President Linda Gregory spoke in support of the nurses.

Nurses are striking because Sutter’s inadequate proposals leave serious patient care issues unaddressed, notably the demand for safe staffing at all times, even during nurse meal and rest breaks. Sutter has declined to guarantee that patient care will be protected in emergency rooms with dedicated Admit nurses and that hospital Rapid Response teams will be available if a patient’s condition deteriorates. At the same time, Sutter’s proposals for nurse health security, medical benefits, and pension improvements continue to be unsatisfactory to RNs and inferior to CNA standards established in contracts with Kaiser Permanente and other facilities.

Sutter’s attempts to close community hospitals throughout the Bay Area have also been a major flashpoint for the nurses in their attempts to negotiate a new contract. Sutter aims to close St. Luke’s Hospital, Sutter Santa Rosa, and San Leandro Hospital—all of which serve a patient population that is poorer and composed of more people of color than other Sutter hospitals.

Genel Morgan, a CCU nurse at Mills-Peninsula added: “Sutter needs to address the patient care and patient and nurse safety issues, which are very serious to the nurses. Instead they seem to have decided on a harassment campaign which will only take us backwards.”

Zenei Cortez, RN, a member of the Council of Presidents of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee commented: “There’s a danger that we’ll see an exodus of experienced nurses out of Sutter facilities. The working conditions are far below other hospitals in the Bay Area.”