National Nurses United

NewsBriefs:Public 8/15/07 3:28 PM Page 5 Sutter Nurses Ready To Strike Back In Contract Talks rustrated by the snail's pace of negotiations with the giant hospital chain Sutter Health and its failure to offer improvements on any of the key issues important to nurses, 5,000 RNs are preparing to raise the stakes in bargaining by turning out in large numbers this August to reject current contract offers that don't meet their standards and strike if necessary. "It's ridiculous that they haven't offered any serious improvements on our big issues and still have major takeaways on the table," said Jan Rodolfo, an RN board member and negotiator from Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. "We're pretty fed up and are ready to show them what happens when 5,000 of us stick together." Some 300 nurses at Sutter Delta Medical Center already voted Aug. 1 by an overwhelming 88 percent to authorize their nurse negotiating team to call a strike if no further progress can be made to improve the "last, best" offer submitted by the hospital. Delta nurses found the proposal sorely inferior to Northern California standards on patient protections and healthcare benefits. Nurses at the other nine bargaining Sutter hospitals will be holding strike authorization votes throughout August. Most of the nurses have been bargaining since this spring. Though the Sutter hospitals do not currently bargain under a master contract, the nurses are coordinating their negotiations and face many of the same struggles to fight takeaways and to improve their working conditions, wages, and benefits. The four main areas in which Sutter RNs would like to see significant change are: better patient care and staffing, pension benefits, post-retirement medical benefits, and current medical benefits. Despite state laws that require a minimum RN-to-patient ratio, Sutter still finds ways to understaff, report RNs. That is why the RNs are pushing to increase staffing for the safety of patients, whether it's by securing ratio provisions in the contract, guaranteeing meal and break coverage, making sure charge nurses are not included as part of the ratio or acuity count, or adding a dedicated team of rapid response nurses to lend support with complex cases. F J U LY | A U G U S T 2 0 0 7 And Sutter has not offered to improve the dollar value of its pensions. It's the area of healthcare benefits for both working and retired nurses with which Sutter RNs are most incensed. Sutter has so far rejected the RNs' proposal to adopt a bona fide full, post-retirement medical plan paid for by Sutter, instead of keeping their current retirement account that may not cover all costs of retiree healthcare and could run out early if the employee lives longer than anticipated. Moreover, Sutter still has healthcare takeaways on the table for various hospitals, including reducing the number of plans and providers available to nurses and making them pay higher copays at the same time. "The plan they're proposing is just not equal or comparable to what we have now," said Suzanne Fleeger, an ER nurse at Sutter Delta and a member of the negotiating team. At her hospital, Sutter wants the nurses to all switch to one plan, Sutter Select, which does not offer many facilities, providers, and specialists for residents of east Contra Costa County, where Delta nurses live. "The resources are inadequate. We all just feel completely insulted by this offer." —staff report MAINE NURSES BEGIN BARGAINING he registered nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center, the largest unionized hospital in the state, have recently begun contract negotiations and hope to win an improved contract this time around, said Judy Brown, RN and local president. The current contract, representing more than 840 nurses at the Bangor facility, will expire on Sept. 30. One of the most significant improvements the nurses are pushing for in this new contract is patient safety language. Such language is "already a gold standard in California," explains Brown, but would be groundbreaking in Maine. "If we can get that, we will be that much further ahead." This will not be the first time EMMC nurses have been thrust into the role of trailblazers; they were the first group of nurses to organize in the entire state of Maine. Today, the nurses constitute half of Maine State Nurses Association, CNA/NNOC's membership in Maine. A key demand of these negotiations is to create the same type of professional practice committee (PPC) that all other CNA/ NNOC-represented RNs currently enjoy. This is a major departure from the current system, which is inherited from the American Nurses Association model of labor-management cooperation that left RNs with little power to make changes. The creation of such a committee will also prevent administration from having the T final say on all staffing recommendations. In the midst of a severe nationwide nursing shortage, across-the-board rate increases are also an essential priority for the nurses in recruiting new and retaining current staff. Such increases are also vital in helping nurses keep up with the rising cost of living and the exploding costs of healthcare benefits. Maine nurses have joined their national peers to rally support for single-payer healthcare in hopes that healthcare issues at the bargaining table will soon be a thing of the past. Current events concerning nurses and the medical field have also shaped negotiation priorities. Nurses are pushing for unprecedented provisions on technology to be included in the contract, ensuring that their professional opinion will influence the implementation and usage of technology at EMMC. Another key goal is protecting nurses' collective bargaining rights in the wake of the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous decisions regarding nurses as supervisors in the Kentucky River and Oakwood cases. Modeled on the pioneering language included in last year's Kaiser Permanente contract, the Kentucky River language would protect charge nurses from being forced out of unions if employers try to classify them as "managers." —staff report MAINE W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 5

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