Bay Area Nurses Strike Sutter Chain to Improve Patient Care

Dozens of members of the California Nurses Association picketed Sutter’s Mills-Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame October 10.

Nearly 5,000 registered nurses took a stand for improving patient care in a two-day strike at 15 Northern California hospitals in October. All but two of the hospitals are part of the giant Sutter Health chain and include some of the largest hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Sutter RNs have made a choice,” California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro said. “They are dedicated to improving patient care conditions and they have decided to step up and protect their communities. Their commitment is about their patients and advocacy for those patients and protecting the community health.

“Sutter should work with the nurses and CNA to turn this healthcare system around. It should treat its nurses with respect, and listen to them. The nurses are concerned with the impact of staffing decisions on patient care protections at Sutter hospitals, reductions in health care coverage and retirement security for Sutter RNs and management proposals to eliminate essential patient care services in Bay Area communities.”

The nurses say the Sutter affiliates provide inadequate staffing, particularly to cover nurses during breaks and during their meals. They also say they have been unable to negotiate language with Sutter covering the lifting of patients, to lessen injuries to nurses and have not come to agreement on health care and pension benefits.

Jan Rodolfo, an oncology nurse at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley, said that “Sutter is jeopardizing our patients by their staffing practices. We have been bargaining for umpteen months and we feel a strike is our only option.”

California union leaders supported the nurses and called for better conditions for patients. “Sutter Health has violated our trust and the fundamental safety of patients by refusing to ensure safe conditions for its patients,” said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation. “This company has sidestepped its patient-care responsibilities by deciding to close hospitals and reduce services simply so it may increase its bottom line. The labor movement of California supports the California Nurses Association and the Sutter RNs in their fight for patient safety, a fair contract, and quality patient care for our communities.”

The strike ran for two days October 10 and 11. At some of the hospitals, management threatened to prolong the dispute with a lockout of nurses for up to an additional three days after the strike ends.

The company recruited replacement nurses from as far away as Ohio. One flier, sent to nurses in Ohio and obtained by CNA/NNOC, offered “up to $90” per hour, airfare or other transportation to the Bay Area, and stays in “luxury accommodations in San Francisco. Minutes from the San Francisco shopping centers and downtown attractions. You are driven to the hospital from your luxury hotel.”

The flier, which listed a phone number for Health Source Global Staffing, said the nurses are “needed between October 8th and October 15”—even though the union informed management that the strike would end Oct. 12. The union said this was a clear indication the hospitals planned to lock out some nurses after the strike was over.

“This is a shameful waste of critical resources by Sutter that could be far better spent on addressing its serious patient care problems and protecting the retirement security of its RNs,” DeMoro said. “The tone of revelry from the recruitment materials shows the disdain these fly-by-night agencies, and the hospital corporations that employ them, have for our communities, and that Sutter has for its RNs.”

In a statement, CNA/NNOC said the lockout was particularly disturbing given the potential danger to public health posed by Sutter’s failure to assure that the strike nurses have legal competency validation as required by state law. Under California hospital licensing laws and state regulations, registered nurses must have demonstrated current competency before being given or accepting direct patient care assignments. Sutter has failed to meet that test, the union says.

In San Mateo County, several dozen members of the California Nurses Association picketed Sutter’s Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame October 10. The strike affected about 650 registered nurses at Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and San Mateo.

Genel Morgan, RN, cardiac intensive care at Mills-Peninsula, said that “It’s notable that the same patient care issues and concerns are seen at all 10 hospitals, which appears to reflect the corporate influence of the importance of the bottom line at the cost of patient care. Sutter must address the issues most important to nurses, such as getting adequate rest in the midst of a shift, which is a patient safety issue.”

Morgan said that fighting for their patients was part of a nurse’s license and that, “Patients tell us ‘we are with you and we support what you are doing.’”

San Mateo County Central Labor Council Community Services Director Rayna Lehman spoke at the rally on behalf of the Labor Council and its 110 affiliated unions and over 70,000 members. “On behalf of all workers fighting for safe working conditions, we support you. On behalf of every patient who gets the life saving care they need from a nurse, we thank you. And for leading the fight at the state level for health care for all and not backing down, we salute you,” she told the nurses.

Chris Pickard, a charge nurse in the hospital’s birthing center, said there are not enough nurses to adequately cover for nurses who need to take a break. She said that a number of nurses have suffered injuries because they do not have enough nurses to have a lift team and that Sutter has failed to replace failing equipment.

Members of the Communication Workers, Teamsters, Electrical Workers and Office and Professional Employees unions also picketed with the nurses in Burlingame.

While nurses at most of the Sutter hospitals returned to work on October 12, Sutter locked out nurses at their Alta Bates Summit Medical Center’s facilities in Oakland and Berkeley; Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley; San Leandro Hospital; Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo; and Fremont Medical Center in Yuba City, northeast of Sacramento.

Zenei Cortez, a member of CNA/NNOC’s Council of Presidents, said, “For a corporation that pretends it respects and values its RNs, the lockout sends a very different, shameful message of retaliation. It’s an insult not only to the nurses, but also to the patients who deserve access to their experienced, qualified RNs.”

No additional negotiations were scheduled, and future strikes remain an option.

“Our first priority is to resolve the patient care problems and negotiate fair contracts, but Sutter has to end its intransigence and hard line stance,” Bonnie Castillo, the union’s Sutter division director, said. “Telling the RNs to take it or leave it does not show a desire by Sutter to resolve our differences and end this dispute.”

Mary Gallagher, former San Mateo County Central Labor Council Office Manager, and the Labor Council’s Community Services Director Rayna Lehman.

- by Paul Burton