News

Alta Bates nurses go on strike, part of Sutter-wide protest

July 3, 2012 10:15 am by Tracey Taylor

Alta Bates registered nurses last went out on a one-day strike on June 13. Photo: Tracey Taylor

Nurses at Alta Bates Summit Hospital on Ashby Avenue in Berkeley plan to strike today, the fifth walk-out since September 2011. The nurses are protesting concession demands they say “would undermine patient care protections as well as health and living standards for the registered nurses.”

Tuesday’s strike will affect 3,500 RNs, and also several hundred respiratory, X-ray, and other technicians at seven Alameda and San Mateo county hospitals operated by the Sutter corporation. A rally is planned at Alta Bates at 11:00 a.m.

“It has become necessary to strike again as Sutter has dug in its heels and refused to negotiate on any issue on the table,” said Alta Bates Summit RN Mike Hill in a statement published online. “They have said they want every takeaway proposed without exception despite record profits and executive salaries. This stance is unacceptable for our nurses, our communities, and our patients.”

Sutter countered that the nurses receive generous wages and benefits and have refused to be cooperative during ongoing negotiations.

“Instead of collaborating with us to resolve these contracts for our nurses, union leaders have rejected virtually every modest contract proposal by our hospitals to make our quality services more efficient and affordable to patients,” they said in a release on the Sutter Health website.

Nurses at Alta Bates last walked out on June 13. As with previous strikes, Sutter is expected to bring in temporary staff to cover for the staff shortages.

Related:
Sutter Health nurses strike at Alta Bates, 10 other hospitals [06.13.12]
On May Day nurses and Cal employees take to streets [05.01.12]
Nurses’ strike draws cheers and honking horns [09.22.11]

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15 Comments

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  • The Sharkey

    This is one of those cases where I don’t like either side in the battle.
    The nurses are being too unwilling to negotiate, and the executives are grossly overpaid and need to stop pushing so hard to maximize profits.

    American health care – the life and death and well-being of our citizens – should not be a for-profit industry.

  • Haselstein

    Sharkey, please take a look at the press release at http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/entry/3500-bay-area-sutter-nurses-to-strike-tuesday/. One of the concessions is loss of paid sick leave.

  • The Sharkey

    From what I’ve read in other comments, they aren’t taking away sick days, they are converting them into PTO.

  • Haselstein

    Took a while, but I finally found that in KQED News online. I can’t say that that is a good approach: If people don’t have designated sick leave and can use the time off for vacation, the tendency is to come in sick. I know this from experience. And then there are many more takeaways, at a time when the numbers of patients will likely rise (and the corporation is highly profitable). 

  • EBGuy

     Just to be clear, Sutter Health IS a non-profit organization.  They are going to be interesting to watch now that ACA has made it through the Supreme Court. Currently Sutter represents their hospitals and physicians groups in negotiations with insurers.  They can get higher reimbursement rates with insurers due to their size and market share.  Essentially this is a doctors versus insurers battle — customers: zero.   Well, I shouldn’t be so negative, my physicians group went under the Sutter East Bay Medical Foundation umbrella several years ago and customer service improved.  I predict Sutter will go the way of Kaiser’s three legged stool and  eventually (next decade?) offer their own insurance plan.  In the mean time, it will be interesting to see how Obamacare gets tweaked by the government; I’m hoping they’ll turn the screws on some heathcare providers — holding them to their non-profit status.  As it is, a lot of the current ‘communtiy benefit’ provided by Sutter centers on uninsured individuals, and won’t most of those folks be going away once the ACA kicks into high gear.
    I’m a hack, so I’d be happy to hear from any healthcare policy wonks out there.

  • Disgusted with the System

    Neither side is letting all the information out.  They ONLY let the public know what will help their side, and they word it so it sounds worse (or better)than it actually is. I have seen what the nurses union wants, and what they have.  They have the best benefits I have ever seen, and most people wish they had 1/2 of what they get.
    On the other side, ALL CEO’s and execs in this country are overpaid.  And while the employees take some of the burden, it is the customers (patients) that really get screwed.  It is also interesting the number of people that are being laid off has not
    been mentioned, yet the nurses thing they are a money pit.
    College execs make record money, and now only the rich can afford to go to school.  PG&E wants to raise their rates for years of pocketing our money, so they don’t have to take any cuts.  Hospitals are doing the same as all the others. 
    It is sickening on both sides.  Converting Sick to PTO is not uncommon, so why do they think they are so special?

  • RN

    Sutter health made a profit last year. The CEO is paid millions. The cuts that Sutter is proposing includes pay cuts of thousands of dollars (some of it in paying a decent differential to nurses who sacrifice their health and family life to work evening and night shift). These cuts would allow nurses to be laid off if temporarily disabled  (most nurses are very highly trained, spend years perfecting the art and skill of nursing and are prone to serious injury and/or exposure to serious illnesses on the job).

    Nurses would also be unable to choose what kind of continued training they need. Say a nurse needs to brush up on new treatments for heart failure or get up to speed on, say, amiodorone versus diltiazem in the treatment of cardiac dysrythmias, but Sutter feels like nurses need more training on communication in the workplace…Right now, nurses at Sutter hospitals can decide what training they need and seek it out, but if these cuts go through, Sutter decides. And grandpa with the cardiac ejection fraction of 25% is the one who loses.

    There are 50 take-aways that have been proposed and Sutter has not backed down on a single one of them in over a year of negotiations. People don’t argue that police officers or firefighters should be paid well and have decent benefits and protections for the work that they do, but nursing remains a female-dominated profession so how dare nurses demand to be paid well for their hard work. It took decades for nursing to become an occupation that is both respected and decently paid. If these cuts go through-and they are *major* cuts-there will be more to follow and soon that might include things like patient-to-nurse ratios that save lives.

    You should support the nurses. I’m an RN and this job is emotionally, physically and intellectually exhausting on levels that I could never explain. There is no adequate compensation for what I do, and I love my job. I care for my patients; you, your child, your sister. Don’t allow Sutter to take advantage of that.

    Good nursing care makes the difference between life and death on a daily basis. And rather than arguing that “other professions don’t get these benefits” maybe other people should be fighting for decent benefits too. Again, it took decades of nurses standing up to get decent treatment.

  • EBGuy

     ”soon that might include things like patient-to-nurse ratios that save lives.”
    Studies of the CNA initiated staffing ratios say otherwise:
    “In 2004, California began requiring that acute care hospitals maintain certain minimum ratios of nurses to patients, making it the first state in the nation to do so…The [study] results show that while the legislation has increased the use of registered nurses, the ratios have had no clear impact on the quality
    measures that are associated with nursing care.”
    See:  http://www.chcf.org/publications/2009/02/assessing-the-impact-of-californias-nurse-staffing-ratios-on-hospitals-and-patient-care#ixzz1tfKEO5A1And

  • Chris

     sharkey got it right.

  • nvh

    Which Tuesday? Today, July 3, or next Tues?

  • The Sharkey

    People don’t argue that police officers or firefighters should be paid
    well and have decent benefits and protections for the work that they do…

    Actually there are comments on Berkeleyside about how Berkeley Police are overpaid compared to their peers all the time.

  • RN

     http://www.wsna.org/Topics/Safe-Nurse-Staffing/Evidence-Based-Approach/

  • sk

    The strike in fact happened today, July 3, which you would never know from reading this article.

  • http://berkeleyside.com Tracey Taylor

    I failed to use the word “today” as I was a using journalistic convention where you state the day. “Today” in a story is potentially confusing as it depends on what day you are reading it. But when I look back at the story, I agree it’s confusing. I’ve added the word “today”.

  • Alta Bates patient

    I don’t know which side is right here.  I do know that as a patient who was at Alta Bates during the last strike, that bringing in temporary staff creates havoc and disruption and that ultimately it is the patients who pay with substandard care.  Forced Arbitration seems a fair solution.