Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Arbitrator rules against CPMC on RN benefits worth 'millions'

East Bay Business Times - by Chris Rauber San Francisco Business Times

An arbitrator ruled Monday that RNs represented by the California Nurses Association at San Francisco's California Pacific Medical Center are eligible for a rollback of extra health-care benefits charges, which "could run into the millions of dollars," the nurses union said March 18.

The ruling by federal arbitrator John Kagel said CPMC parent Sutter Health illegally violated the terms of their contracts by "unilaterally raising fees and co-pays on health-care benefits," according to the union.

The decision came four days before CNA nurses at California Pacific and seven other Sutter hospitals in the Bay Area are set to go out on a 10-day Good Friday strike to protest a variety of issues, including benefits and patient safety. "It's a huge victory for nurses, and it does illustrate why nurses are looking to get stronger contract language regarding patient safety and protecting their own health care," said Bonnie Castillo, RN, CNA's Sutter division director in charge of labor representatives at 18 hospital campuses in Northern California, including San Francisco's CPMC.

Castillo said Sutter has implemented similar health-care benefit changes at other facilities in the region, and that Sutter workers represented by at least one other labor union also have arbitration scheduled on this issue. "This decision is pretty much binding," Castillo said, adding that an appeal is virtually impossible in such cases. "They have to make restitution at this point."

Officials at CPMC could not immediately be reached for comment.

At issue are increased fees and co-pays imposed in January 2007, according to the union, which said evidence presented during arbitration showed that CPMC, part of the Sacramento-based Sutter nonprofit network, "reduced nurses' access to care by raising co-pays, prescription drug costs, and hospitalization co-pays by up to 43 percent in some cases," and up to $250 in others, in violation of negotiated union contracts. CNA said Sutter had argued during arbitration that the changes didn't have a "material" effect on the nurses' health benefits, "a claim that was dismissed in the ruling."

The union represents about 700 RNs at CPMC's California campus and the affiliated St. Luke's Hospital campus in San Francisco; it does not currently represent nurses at the multi-site hospital's Pacific and Davies campuses, Castillo said, noting that St. Luke's status is under negotiation.

According to CNA, facilities employing about 4,000 RNs in the union will conduct their third, and longest, strike in recent months against Sacramento-based Sutter, starting Friday. Thousands of RNs recently struck Sutter Bay Area facilities in two-day walkouts in October and December. At some hospitals, the walkouts were also extended by lockouts, when the facilities hired replacement workers on longer contracts that the two days of the strike itself.

Sutter facilities affected by the strike votes include both St. Luke's and CPMC in San Francisco, San Leandro Hospital, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and San Mateo, Castro Valley's Eden Medical Center, Antioch's Sutter Delta Medical Center and Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo.

Potential strike votes at three other Sutter facilities -- Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, Novato Community Hospital and Sutter Santa Rosa Medical Center -- were stymied by a serious illness that struck a key union organizer, said CNA spokesman Shum Preston. As a result, those votes couldn't be rescheduled in time to coordinate with strike plans at the other Sutter facilities.