Nurses in California, Chicago set to strike over wages, safety

They want higher staffing levels, better pay and retention efforts and a stronger voice in patient care delivery, organizers say.

About 6,400 registered nurses are set to strike in late April and early May at eight California hospitals and one major Chicago hospital over pay and safety issues.

The demonstration is coordinated by National Nurses United and its affiliate, the California Nurses Association, registered nurses working at Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, Providence Health & Services and the University of Chicago Medical Center.

They want higher staffing levels, better pay and retention efforts and “a stronger voice in patient care delivery,” said National Nurses United co-president Karen Higgins, a former critical care nurse at Boston Medical Center. “Across the country, nurses are unified in insisting that hospitals improve RN staffing which far too often is compromising patient safety and other patient protections.”

In northern California, registered nurses are planning to strike for one day on April 30th at five Sutter Health facilities, the Roseville Medical Center, Mills-Peninsula Health Services, Auburn Faith, Sutter Tracy and the new $285 million Santa Rosa Regional Hospital.

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At Sutter’s teaching hospital in San Francisco, California Pacific Medical Center, Sutter nurses are planning to hold an informational picket.

“We’re fighting for patient safety, we’re fighting against unsafe staffing” and "willing to step up and take on the Sutter Health corporation,” said Jennifer Barker Tilly, an emergency room RN at Sutter Roseville. “A nurse is not a product or commodity, we are patient care providers,” said Maria Vazquez, an oncology nurse at Sutter Torrence. “The experience of each nurse must be valued.”

Sutter Health officials acknowledged the concerns of the nurses, but said that the 23-hospital system offers more than fair compensation and a good work environment.

“Providing quality care for patients starts with taking good care of our nurses and all employees, and we are proud of the generous wages and benefits,” said Sutter chief medical officer Stephen Lockhart, MD, who noted that a unionized nurse at Sutter hospitals earns an average of $140,000 annually, 40 paid days off, the option of a zero-monthly-premium health plan and a pension.

Elsewhere in California, another 2,400 nurses are planning to strike at Providence Health & Services hospitals in Santa Monica and Torrance and at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center amid similar concerns over staffing levels and retention rates.

Susan Fong, an operating room nurse at Kaiser LAMC, said the hospital could be spending more on the workforce and hiring more clinicians to meet the integrated health system’s growing membership.

“Kaiser’s net profit was over $4.3 billion last year and is increasing each week,” Fong said. “They have recruited more than half a million more members last year alone and that number is increasing. Kaiser needs need to invest in staffing so that the nurses can adequately care for the large increase in patients.”

Kaiser Permanente leaders are taking the strike in stride. In a statement, Kaiser Foundation Hospitals called out the California Nurses Association over the strike. “We believe it is entirely inappropriate to attempt to disrupt patient care or service as part of a union organizing effort,” Kaiser officials said.

“Kaiser Permanente values our nurses, along with all of our teams. While we support their rights, including their right to strike, we hope they will consider the impact to our patients and remain on the job as this is not about quality — in fact, our nursing staff ratios meet or exceed state guidelines.”

At Providence’s Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, as many as 520 nurses may strike over concerns about turnover, which has been huge, said to Liz Wade, a labor and delivery nurse. “The chronic short staffing, lack of break relief nurses and management’s refusal to respond seriously to our safety demands sends a bad message to RNs and the community,” Wade said. Providence has not yet responded to the union.

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Nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center are planning to strike on April 30th in a bid to cut rotating shifts that can stretch for 12 hours. Nurses with the union have been in talks with the medical center since last fall, but still have a list of concerns.

Among them are ending the rotating shifts -- which nurses say can lead to errors and accidents on the drive home -- more nurses on staff and having supervising nurses and not managers.

“University of Chicago nurses are standing together to end the unsafe practice of rotating shifts, to keep staffing advocacy in the hands of bedside clinical nurses and to improve staffing conditions,” said Talisa Hardin, a nurse on the burn unit.

UCMC has called the dispute is a “demand for more money.”

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Debra Albert, senior vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at UCMC, said the average nurse at the medical center receives more than $100,000 a year in wages alone, “more than virtually all of their peers at other Chicago-area hospitals.” The hospital’s leadership has also offered nurses a 4.5 to 5.5 percent wage increase each year of the proposed new contract. "Our economic proposals maintain a highly competitive salary and compensation program for our nurses, while also being mindful of challenging economic realities facing so many healthcare organizations today," Albert said.

Meanwhile, on the coast of Maine, unionized nurses at Mount Desert Island Hospital have reached a tentative agreement with management and a federal mediator for a new contract, after going almost a year without one.

“The nurses feel that this tentative agreement not only moves forward economically but, importantly, addresses our concerns about respect and patient safety,” Maine State Nurses Association representative Vanessa Sylvester told the Mount Desert Islander.

Details of the tentative agreement are not clear, but the union had called for contract language that would allow nurses to have “significant input in the implementation and use of patient care technology as well adequate training on all equipment, technology and medical devices.”

Twitter: @AnthonyBrino