About 4,400 registered nurses at 10 Sutter Health hospitals, including three Alta Bates Summit Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and Oakland, are planning a one-day strike on Wednesday to protest concessions that they say Sutter management is demanding.
The strike will be the latest in a series by members of the California Nurses Association over contracts that have been under negotiation for about a year. The most recent strike was on May 1.
Union spokeswoman Liz Jacobs said today that the nurses are protesting concessions demanded by management such as eliminating paid sick days, requiring nurses to pay for health care for themselves and their families, and eliminating retiree health plans.
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"There's been absolutely no movement in bargaining by the hospital," Jacobs said. "We've made compromises but Sutter hasn't."
Sutter spokeswoman Karen Garner said the nurses are making "unreasonable demands" which will "unnecessarily increase costs."
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Nurses will also strike at Mills-Peninsula Health Services hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, San Leandro Hospital, Sutter Delta in Antioch, Sutter Solano in Vallejo and Novato Community Hospital.
Garner said that as it has done in previous strikes, Sutter will bring in replacement nurses to ensure that it maintains a full staff that can offer the same level of service to its patients. She said that although the nurses only plan to strike for 24 hours, Sutter has hired replacements for multiple days of work because most replacement nurses have contracts that require them to work for multiple days -- something the nurses dispute. That means striking nurses will miss several days of work, Garner said.
-- Bay City News Service
