National Nurses United

NewsBriefs Hundreds of Catholic Healthcare West RNs from throughout California met Mar. 8 in Los Angeles to gain a historic overview of their hospital chain and strategize about bargaining that will cover 9,000 RNs. They took time out from their conference to support nearby RNs at Little Company of Mary San Pedro Hospital who protested hospital efforts to bar nurses from union representation rights under a controversial federal labor board decision finding that nurses are "supervisors." "loosely affiliated" group of not-forprofit hospitals when it operates, in reality, as a large, corporate hospital chain. Since the 1990s, the company has been well known for buying or entering leases to operate struggling community hospitals with promises to maintain the character of these facilities and continue providing indigent care, women's services and other community benefits, only to turn around and cut services or even shut down facilities. Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, for which Sutter this winter announced closure plans, is just the latest casualty of this corporate model. Sutter's selective denial and assertion of itself as a corporate hospital chain also hurts nurses' work environments and practice. When nurses would like to make patient care improvements system wide, Sutter argues, "Oh no, we're autonomous hospitals," says Genel Morgan, an ICU RN at Mills-Peninsula Health Services. "But then we can't go and buy the renal tubes we need because corporate says so." The nurses agreed that these contradictory attitudes ultimately kept Sutter RNs confused and divided, and served as a way of controlling them. "We have to get over this idea that Sutter makes decisions and that we can't impact what they do," said Rodolfo. "We as a group can have a big influence on them." —staff report SUTTER NURSES PREPARE TO BARGAIN ome 5,000 CNA/NNOC RNs working at Sutter Health facilities in Northern California are preparing to begin bargaining in late spring. According to the RN bargaining team, their priorities will be to secure contract language that protects nurses against the antiunion implications of a federal labor board decision that found nurses are supervisors, to pursue a master Sutter contract and a new facility organizing agreement, to improve medical benefits, retiree health and pension plans, and to catch up all Sutter nurses on the best language governing ratios, the introduction of new technologies, no involuntary floating and no cancellation of shifts. S 10 REGISTERED NURSE "What we hope to accomplish coming out of this round of bargaining with Sutter is for them to view us as one group of nurses," said Jan Rodolfo, a bargaining team leader and an oncology RN at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. "We want to show them unity, so that they know when they mistreat one group of Sutter nurses, they're going to have to deal with all of us." On March 29, dozens of Sutter RNs from various facilities gathered to share stories and plan their bargaining strategy. One of the major frustrations of Sutter RNs has been Sutter's representation of itself as a CALIFORNIA W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G APRIL 2007

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