National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:October 2007 10/18/07 12:04 AM Page 6 NewsBriefs the labor and delivery and postpartum units at the Berkeley campus of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center say this is the case at their hospital, and that LVNs will often review and evaluate lab results—something for which they are neither licensed nor qualified. Nurses also walked the picket line to protect and improve conditions for themselves, mainly in the area of bettering their pensions and current and retiree healthcare benefits. Sutter has offered no pension increases. Its healthcare takeaways vary across the different tables, but many of them involve losing choice of healthcare providers, paying more out of pocket, and receiving fewer benefits overall. "There's no reason in this day and age that nurses can't retire with dignity," said Sherry Ramsey, a critical care unit RN at Sutter Solano and a bargaining team member. "We spend our career taking care of other people and then have to worry about taking care of ourselves?" The two days of strike activities went smoothly. Thousands of nurses turned out across the campuses to staff picket lines starting from 7 a.m. Nurses passed out flyers to the public and asked cars driving by to honk their horns in support. Nurses were surprised and dismayed to learn how much better Sutter was willing to treat strikebreaking nurses compared to its regular staff. During the strike, Sutter hired replacement nurses from strikebreaking staffing agencies at a cost of up to $90 per hour, according to one recruitment flyer obtained by CNA/NNOC. In addition, the strikebreakers were provided luxury accommodations and shuttle rides to and from work. At Mills-Peninsula Health Services, striking RNs were upset to learn that the hospital was providing strikebreakers with 24-hour a day lift teams to help move patients even though Sutter would not agree to such requests in contract negotiations. Sutter should be prepared to handle more difficult times with its RNs if it doesn't start to bargain seriously on key issues, said nurses. "They think they can push people around, but they're in for the rudest awakening of all time," said Bob Auen, an ICU RN at Eden Medical Center and co-chief nurse rep there. "We will continue to headbutt with them if they keep putting profits over people. With this strike, the nurses are starting to recognize their own power and that we're a force to be dealt with." —staff report 6 REGISTERED NURSE Fremont-Rideout RNs Stage Second Strike ollowing a widely supported oneday strike on Aug. 31, nurses at Fremont-Rideout Health Group struck again on Oct. 10 and 11. Although patients and community members have shown sincere support for the nurses, management has not budged since the Aug. 31 action, leading to the call for the additional October strike dates, which coincided with RN strikes at 13 Sutter facilities. As in August, FRHG brought in replacement workers who appeared ill-trained to handle the responsibilities of the striking RNs. On Oct. 10, Tammie Wellborn, an RN at Fremont Medical Center, was forced to perform a catheterization on her own 6-year-old daughter at a scheduled doctor's appointment before joining the picket line. "[The replacement nurses] didn't know what they were doing," explained Wellborn as she told her story during a rally. "There were no chemo-certified nurses at the [Fremont] cancer center," adds Tonya Rodriguez, a recovery room RN and bargaining team member at Fremont Medical Center. "Management refused to cancel appointments or even alert the chemo F patients that there would be no qualified RNs available." Rodriguez and her fellow RNs had to go to the cancer center themselves to inform patients of the situation. This second strike is just the latest in a frustrating string of events stemming from the deadlocked negotiation process between CNA/NNOC and FRHG. RNs report that the biggest part of the problem is not management's concern about giving up profits, but about giving up power. FRHG spent $1 million on locking out nurses and bringing in strikebreakers for the Aug. 31 strike until Sept. 4, and has spent hundreds if not thousands more on advertising those arrangements. FRHG has also refused to budge on contract negotiations even though the nurses have given counter-proposals that emphasize patient safety, safe staffing, and healthcare benefits above salary. In a recent newspaper ad, FRHG claimed that 25 percent of its RNs earned at least $100,000 a year. "I am at the highest pay level for a full-time staff nurse, and I make nowhere near [that amount]," Yuba City RN Jeannie Southard retorted in a letter to the newspaper that initially ran the ad. CALIFORNIA W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G OCTOBER 2007

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