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18 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5 C A L I F O R N I A N U R S E I t was 1980 and Patricia Strickland, an oncol- ogy RN with the Summit campus of what's now called Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center, was out on maternity leave with her first child. Her unit was going to merge with another unit, so she decided to consult the CNA contract to figure out her rights and whether she'd have a job to return to after her absence. "So I started reading, and then I just kept reading to see what else I'm protected under," said Strickland. "And I thought, 'There's a lot here!' People don't really know how much they're protected." And that was Strickland's entrée into CNA. She was so impressed by the contract that she quickly joined her hospital's bargaining commit- tee as an alternate negotiator. From there, she became a permanent member of Summit's bar- gaining team and has helped negotiate every con- tract since, including Summit RNs' current tough talks with Sutter Health. She's also been a nurse representative, helped galvanize her colleagues for the infamous Summit strike of 1992, and served five years starting in 2000 as a CNA board member. Strickland, who says she needs a breather, will be leaving the board when her term expires in September. Strickland, whom everybody calls Pat, says the biggest eye-opener for her about how much power workers really have if they band together was when Summit RNs chose to go on strike with the hospital's other unions in 1992 to win a con- tract that preserved their right to sympathy strike. Many of her coworkers were already unhappy, she said, by how Summit had handled its recent merger of three hos- pitals. Staff was not informed about what would happen after the merger or oriented to their new unit. "It was like, Report to work on this day, and there you are," remembered Strickland. "It was totally impersonal." The hospital staff's discontent, combined with major out- reach by nurses to the community and speaking at public hear- ings and city council meetings, got the RNs what they wanted after a six-week strike. From there, Strickland moved into helping staff nurse lead- ers stage the 1992 takeover of CNA's board, which used to be dominated by nurse managers and academics who were reluc- tant to confront hospital corporations about the multitude of problems bedside nurses were facing. She's also proud of CNA's Feature Story Happy Medium Pat Strickland, RN is known for her balanced temperament and negotiation skills BY LUCIA HWANG Posing here with the Sutter bargaining team, Pat Strickland, RN (second from right) has helped negotiate every contract for Summit RNs since the early '80s.