BERKELEY—Today’s strike at Sutter Health facilities by the California Nurses Association left hospitals across Northern California short 5,000 nurses, a circumstance some dealt with by hiring temporary help through “replacement nurse” agencies.
The CNA, a union representing over 75,000 of the nation’s 2.4 million nurses, has long been a force in creating change within the nursing profession. Its members are often in the media spotlight, initiating strikes and successfully pushing for pay raises as the state faces a nursing shortage. It represents nurses at ten hospital groups, including Sutter Health, Catholic Healthcare West, Kaiser Permanente and the University of California.
Founded in 1903, the union aims to provide “advocacy for nurses and patients [which] provides an important check to corporate domination of the healthcare debates,” according to the CNA Web site. The Sutter Health hospitals’ replacement-nurse contracts are just one side effect of the strike, which is not the first disagreement in recent CNA history.
CNA spent half of last year haggling over nurses’ salaries with UC, ultimately landing 9,000 UC-employed nurses a 5 to 9 percent pay increase and winning compensation for nurses who do not receive work breaks.
Nurses in that dispute, who worked at UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, UC San
Francisco and UC Irvine, as well as five UC student health centers, staged protests at the facilities, saying they were not paid for break time. Consequently, many nurses skipped breaks, resulting in more taxing workdays.
CNA alleged that exhausted nurses provided inferior care, meaning patients bore the brunt of the nursing shortage. After negotiations failed, a third-party mediator helped CNA and UC write a new contract.
UC and CNA reached a new impasse last week when CNA rejected the university’s offer to extend a previously agreed-upon contract. Since Oct. 1, UC nurses have been working without a contract.
“We’re working with them toward a new agreement with our nurses,” said Nicole Savickas, spokesperson for the UC Office of the President. “We share the concern for patient care at our facilities throughout the state.”
The Web site UCNurses.com, which UC uses to chronicle the ongoing dispute with CNA, says the university has attempted to appease CNA, to no avail. “In addition to reaffirming the University’s substantial proposals, which include raises and limited health insurance cost increases, UC also offered to extend the contract until October 12 and include a salary increase effective in October if an agreement was reached by that date,” the Web site says. “CNA rejected these offers.”
Savickas declined to comment on today’s strikes at Sutter Health facilities, citing UC’s ongoing labor battle with the nursing-union giant.
CNA and Sutter Health had been trying to negotiate individual labor contracts since April. The failure of these negotiations caused today’s strike, expected to last 48 hours.