National Nurses United

NEWS BRIEFS Sutter Nurses Strike Back Third Time CALIFORNIA n may 1, 4,500 registered nurses, as well as respiratory and radiology techs, working for eight Sutter Health facilities staged a one-day strike across the Bay Area to tell the wealthy hospital corporation that they will not stand for massive concessions to the contracts they are now bargaining, and are prepared to do battle for the long haul if necessary. The corporation locked out nurses at most facilities for an additional four days in retaliation for going out on strike. The May Day strike was the third strike that Sutter nurses have held over the past year for a fair contract, and the mood on the strike lines was energetic and defiant. ���It���s been a long, hard fight, but we will keep fighting,��� said Chris Picard, an RN and bargaining team member from Sutter���s Mills Peninsula Health Services. ���Thanks so much for coming out and sticking up for yourselves.��� After bargaining for almost a year, Sutter���s nurses and management are still far apart on an agreement. Sutter Health O 6 N AT I O N A L N U R S E The extreme takeaways sought by Sutter Health stand in stark contrast to the pay it grants to its executives and to its growing profits every year. A universal takeaway at the many bargaining tables is a proposal to eliminate paid sick leave, a standard that nurses have enjoyed for decades. Instead, Sutter wants nurses to file for state disability benefits after seven days of illness, and to not be reimbursed for any illness of shorter duration, which RNs say will only encourage their coworkers to come to work sick, endangering already compromised patients. Sutter also wants its nurses to pay thousands more dollars in health coverage for themselves and their families; to force nurses to work in units where they do not have clinical expertise; and to make part-time nurses take huge cuts in benefits. ���This is Wall Street���s hospital. This employer is trying to set a new low standard in this country,��� said RoseAnn DeMoro, continues to demand more than a hundred takeaways from the RNs that they say will drastically undermine their livelihoods and the quality of patient care that they can provide. The nurses say the takeaways reflect Sutter���s relentless drive toward fattening its already very hefty bottom line, which also includes eliminating services deemed not profitable enough by Sutter, and shutting down entire hospitals in less affluent neighborhoods. Though communities still need these functions at their hospitals, Sutter across Northern California has closed labor and delivery, pediatrics, skilled nursing, and psychiatric units, as well as cutting off services such as mammogram screenings and bone marrow transplants. Sutter pushed to close St. Luke���s Hospital in San Francisco, though it is the only privatesector hospital serving the southern half of the city, and now has slated San Leandro Hospital across the bay, which treats more than 27,000 patients in its emergency room every year, for closure. At the same time Sutter, with its not-for-profit tax status, has posted profits of more than $4 billion since 2007 and pays its CEO Pat Fry an annual compensation package worth more than $4.5 million. W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G A P R I L | M AY 2 0 1 2

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