Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Sutter nurses to walk off job for 10 days

The Vallejo Times-Herald - by Rachel Raskin-Zrihen

For the third time in less than six months, Sutter Health nurses, including about 200 from Sutter Solano Medical Center, are walking off the job - this time for 10 days - it was announced Monday.

The California Nurses Association, whose membership authorized a third walkout two weeks ago, filed notices with six hospitals including the Vallejo facility, that its 10-day strike will start March 21, said union spokesman Shum Preston.

It's the first strike of this length in nearly two decades, said longtime Sutter nurse Janet Braillard. “The last time was in 1989,” Braillard said. “So, this is a big deal.”

While union officials insist they're striking for patient safety and improved working conditions, hospital officials say the job action is really about increasing union influence and membership.

“CNA's own internal documents confirm Sutter Health hospitals' offers are as good or better than CNA contracts with other hospitals on key issues like staffing ratios and break relief,” hospital officials said in a statement.

Braillard disputes this claim. “They always say it's about union membership, but we keep telling them it's about what our patients and our nurses need, like dedicated break relief, so someone is looking after the patients when our nurses take their 30-minute lunch break,” she said. “It's not about getting new union members. It's about patient safety. I'm getting really tired of it.”

The only real difference between Sutter Health contracts and those the union has with other hospitals is the absence of systemwide union organizing language in Sutter Health contracts, the Sutter statement said. The statement adds that this was learned from union documents obtained following an unfair labor practices charge filed by one Sutter affiliate.

The strikes in October and December were called as two- to four-day work stoppages, though nurses were off the job several days longer in Vallejo and some other hospitals due, hospital officials said, to minimum replacement nurse contracts.

No such problem exists this time, since the strike is to last 10 days, said Sutter Solano nursing director Kim Trumbull. “We'll do the same thing we did the last two times,” Trumbull said. “We'll hire replacement nurses and conduct business as usual.”

A strike can still be avoided if negotiations resume, Braillard said, though Trumbull said there's not much hope of that.

“There might be chance if there were talks going on, but there hasn't been anything substantive since October,” she said. “We just got the notice, so now the heavy planning starts.”

E-mail Rachel Raskin- Zrihen at RachelZ@thnewsnet.com or call 553-6824.