Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/198573
NewsBriefs:Public 9/4/07 4:11 PM Page 6 NewsBriefs Sutter RNs Fed Up, Authorize Strikes s sutter health refused to negotiate seriously on top-priority issues of bettering patient care standards, improving pensions, and maintaining healthcare benefits, some 5,000 registered nurses at 10 facilities around Northern California voted throughout August to authorize their bargaining teams to call simultaneous strikes if necessary. The elections were characterized by high turnouts and overwhelming margins agreeing to strike. "Nurses have had it up to here," said Jan Rodolfo, an oncology RN on the bargaining team for Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and a CNA/NNOC board member. "Sutter doesn't seem interested in keeping up a good working relationship with us." Though the Sutter hospitals do not currently bargain under a master contract, the nurses are coordinating their negotiations and face a variety of similar struggles over takeaways and improvements. Sutter seems to have adopted the tactic of inconsistently agreeing to or denying various provisions in order to "divide and conquer," say some nurses. While some Sutter hospitals have state-mandated safe staffing ratio provisions in their contracts (though nurses report they are sporadically in compliance), others do not and Sutter has refused to budge on the issue. And while some nurses currently enjoy a traditional defined-benefit pension plan, Sutter is pushing to phase out pensions and promoting a 401(k)-style plan for its nurses. "Instead of raising us all up to the best standards, Sutter just wants to drag us all down to the lowest, worst denominator," said Efren Garza, a psych RN at the Herrick campus of A 6 REGISTERED NURSE Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and a member of the negotiating team. "They come up with some pretty bizarre stuff. I suspect it's to keep us from being unified, but I think they've been surprised by how organized we are." Like many other nurses and working people sitting down at bargaining tables across the country, Sutter RNs have had a particularly difficult time maintaining or improving their healthcare benefits for active and retired nurses. Sutter wants working RNs to pay significant premiums and copays for the first time, as well as giving up plan options. Ultimately, Sutter appears to want to migrate all the nurses into a self-insurance program called Sutter Select that has received poor reviews from RNs already using it. And while RNs want to have a bona fide retiree health program, Sutter is only offering to fund a healthcare retirement account based on years of service. Nurses are then responsible for finding and buying their own insurance, and requesting reimbursements against the account. It's unclear what happens if nurses are not able to find an insurer if options are too expensive or they have preexisting conditions. And the account could always run out too early. One recent August afternoon, Garza visited the sixth floor medical-surgical unit at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, Calif. to relay the latest bargaining news and explain the healthcare offer Sutter had given to nurses there. Sutter wanted nurses to start paying a $90 per month premium for themselves and $180 if the nurse was covering dependents. Sutter would waive the premium, but only if nurses and their family members agreed to participate in a Sutter "wellness program." Enrolling in the program entailed filling out a detailed health questionnaire as well as meeting with wellness "coaches" multiple times throughout the year to evaluate goals and progress. It sounded fine on the surface, but the negotiating team believed the health survey data might be used inappropriately by Sutter administration and questioned the credentials of these "coaches"—who are not nurses, nurse practitioners, or doctors but more akin to personal or fitness trainers—to manage nurses' health. The dozen or so nurses crowded around the sixth floor breakroom table sounded skeptical of the program as well. "These are things I discuss with my doctor, not a third party," said one RN as she flipped through the questionnaire. "Oh my God, look at this question: 'How would you describe the stress in your daily life?' Well, what do you think it is, working for Sutter?" "This stuff is just none of their business," said another nurse. "I'd strike just over this," said one RN in light blue scrubs. "It's a total invasion of privacy." Garza received similar reactions from nurses as he moved to different units and different campuses. "I think there's a big motive behind all of this," he said, explaining that Sutter is very good at crunching numbers and producing statistics. He fears that Sutter may use the data to close certain departments where health risks among nurses may be deemed too high, or as a way of pushing out older employees in favor of younger ones. Nurses all across the Sutter system are tired of these games. "The nurses are feeling disrespected, feeling disposable, and feeling that the administration is totally out of touch with what patients need," said Genel Morgan, an ICU RN on the bargaining team at Mills-Peninsula Health Services and a CNA/NNOC board member. "With a strike, we want to send a message that they need to deal with these patient care issues and back up all their lip service about being community based, not for profit." —staff report CALIFORNIA W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G SEPTEMBER 2007