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Nurses to Strike California Hospitals Thursday
As many as 23,000 registered nurses are expected to walk off their jobs Thursday at Kaiser Permanente, Children's Hospital Oakland and many Sutter Health medical centers in Northern and Central California.
The Kaiser strike - which will involve about 17,000 nurses represented by the California Nurses Association-National Nurses United - is in sympathy with 1,500 mental health and optometry employees at Kaiser facilities in Northern California represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers. 
Children’s Oakland RN Martha Kuhl, front, with other Children’s, Kaiser, and Sutter RNs in a rally at the NNU Convention in San Francisco September 15. (photo: National Nurses United)
Mental health workers at Kaiser said they're striking over proposed cuts to their health and retirement benefits, and what they described as exceptionally long wait times for patients to receive individual psychiatric care. They are also expected to be joined by another 2,000 equipment engineers from another union.
Registered nurses at Children's Hospital Oakland and Sutter Health centers are also holding a one-day walkout Thursday, but the strike is over their ongoing contract disputes at those facilities. In total, 34 hospitals in Northern and Central California will be affected by Thursday's labor action.
Officials from the hospitals affected by the strikes said they will continue to provide care by hiring replacement workers and rescheduling elective procedures.
While the Kaiser strike will last just one day, officials at Sutter and Children's hospitals said they signed five-day contracts with companies that provide replacement nurses. That means the nurses at those hospitals will be unable to return to work until Tuesday morning. Kaiser nurses will be back on the job on Friday.
"I think it's punitive," Martha Kuhl, a veteran nurse at Children's Hospital and an officer with the nurses' union, said of the five-day contracts. "I'm scheduled to work on Friday and I'm not on strike on Friday. I'll be outside the hospital for my 3 p.m. shift, and I hope they let me in."
The 700 nurses at Children's Hospital represented by the nurses' union last held a five-day strike in early May. Their main objection continues to be a management proposal they say will require them to pay more for health care.
Some of the Sutter centers affected by the strike include Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley, Mills-Peninsula centers in San Mateo and Burlingame, Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo and Sutter Delta in Antioch. The nurses at the hospitals are upset about proposed changes to benefits, including sick pay, as well as patient-staffing issues.
The nurses at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco are not striking because the union said the parties are not in active negotiations.
Kaiser officials described negotiations with the optometry and mental health professionals as in the "preliminary stage" and said they were disappointed by the nurses' participation in the labor action.
"Simply put, Kaiser Permanente is not in contract negotiations with CNA - and our bargaining with NUHW does not affect CNA," said Gay Westfall, senior vice president of human resources for Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan.
12 Comments so far
Show AllMay those brave striking nurses obtain victory over corporate tyranny.
GR8 act of Solidarity. Comparable to what is happening in Tacoma with ILWU and teachers in some ways. Glad to see there is some real unionism left on the Left Coast. May be a precursor to a NUHW/NNU merger as an antidote to the horrendous, expensive and anti-labor behavior of the SEIU which continues to pour hundreds of staffers and millions of dollars into an effort to destroy the NUHW and undermine the power of a ttrue and honorable working-class organization, i.e. a UNION
what they described as exceptionally long wait times for patients to receive individual psychiatric care.
The nurses at the hospitals are upset about proposed changes to benefits, including sick pay, as well as patient-staffing issues.
You see unions in general and unions representing nurses in particular aren't JUST about wages salaries and benefits they advocate for their customers/patients as well. Reducing staff and increasing work load, patients-staffing issues decreases the quality of patient care, this is demonstated in study after study. But here's the kicker, a health care system that wants to increase their employees contribution to thier own health care most likely delivered by the same health care system....absolutely disgraceful. Charge your empyees a nominal ammount if you must but don't have the audacity to charge your employees a premium to receive health care from the system for which they work. Its worth noting that several years ago Permanente laid off over a thousand nurses only to be told to reenstate almost of them by the courts!
THIS is the kind of stuff that can work wonders! STRIKES WORK.
Every strike vote should be for a term of at least one week and include actions to make sure the strikers are NOT replaced by scabs, by logging in the scabs names and photos and refusing to work with them at any future time. Lets use the same anti-human tools our enemies use.
"... include actions to make sure the strikers are NOT replaced by scabs, by logging in the scabs names and photos and refusing to work with them at any future time."
Outstanding idea! Scabs are beneath contempt.
In this job market/economy, I would vote to harm the companies directly and exhaust all possibilities before acting against the scabs. I am ok with ID'ing them though. Those scabs can't be much different than anyone else trying to survive. Maybe they could be (should be) co-opted to help sabotage the companies from the inside somehow (Of course it is a problem that the patients don't deserve more troubles). Wouldn't it be great to see some scab truck drivers take some pay AND block the roadways anyway? We need to all work together to accumulate as much of the 99% as possible to create a fair system.
Looks like o may have his runnybutt reagan moment by firing all those nurses. Would keep him on par with his neoconservative agendas.
Perhaps Kaiser and Westfall *wish* they were not in negotiation with CNA.
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And how wonderful that CNA realizes that Kaiser's bargaining with NUHW does indeed affect them.
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The nurses are tough. They deserve admiration, cooperation, and our thanks for making this decision, regardless of immediate outcomes.
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Let's see what happens when the teachers are up against it in CA.
Maybe our Nurses need to march on Washington , and demand the end of these Holly expensive wars, or storm the main stream media and ask them to protect freedom of speech, and start reporting the real state of affairs in America, and stop ignoring Ron Paul, the only candidate with the courage to end the wars, the Fed and the Patriot Acts, before we become a full blown Stasi police state.
Lets replace the 500 elected treasonous Patriot Act signing pricks in Washington with real American patriots , I love all you nurses.
You Go Girls!!!!!!!
Have these hospitals been profitable over say the last five years? I am wondering why they need to cut staffing and worker benefits. Anyone have those figures?
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If Kaiser Permanente's CEO George Halvorson can make a cool 8 million in 2009, there's no reason to cut employee salaries and benefits, other than greed.