Early this month, relations between California registered nurses and Riverside Community Hospital went from a boil to a simmer, following a lengthy labor dispute.
A strike by registered nurses (RNs) at Riverside ended on January 4, leaving the federal mediator, who has been trying to settle the dispute, is now trying to get both sides back to the table.
Around 800 RNs at Riverside, the city?s largest hospital, have been without a contract for about nine months. After a long bargaining session, negotiations broke down most recently on December 11, 2010. The nurses called a five-day strike against the hospital that started two days before Christmas.
John Arnold, a spokesman for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said that the federal mediator is working ?very closely? with the two sides to bring about a solution, but said that his agency has a policy not to comment on the progress of negotiations.
"We all along have said, since the first part of December, that we'd be willing to meet any date and time," said Kathy Hughes, a former RN at the hospital and now a full-time union official. "We've all kept our schedules open to do that."
The nurses? quarrel is over staffing and training practices and more flexibility. RNs want safe staffing ratios based on patient acuity, as well as a resolution to issues regarding pay scales, career advancement opportunities, rest and meal period regulations, and technology training.
The union described the RNs priorities:
?Staffing by Acuity: Our Union is proposing language that addresses issues with the system that reviews a patient's acuity. The sicker our patients, the fewer we should have under one RN's care. This is needed to protect our patients, allow them to heal, get well and go home to their families.
?Rest and Meals: We want to ensure that rest and meal breaks are guaranteed and enforceable by our contract. RNs work very long hours; if a nurse cannot rest and recharge, patients are at risk.
?Clinical Ladder: Our Clinical Ladder proposal would encourage RNs to attain additional education and training and receive small, usually temporary pay increases for doing so. Our Clinical Ladder proposal is achievable and is a win for the hospital, patients and RNs.
?Call-Off: Nurses in some areas of the hospital are reporting significant loss of pay because of call-offs. Our Union is proposing that the hospitals establish a bank of time to compensate nurses for involuntary call-off. RNs need a stable pay check just like everyone else.?
The SEIU Local 121 RN strike was planned to take place from December 23 to December 28 at West Hills Hospital & Medical Center, Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center and Riverside Community Hospital, which all belong to the parent company Hospital Corporation of America (HCA).
Union-member RNs at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks pulled out of the planned strike, announcing that they would instead negotiate with HCA officials separately.
?We totally support West Hills and Riverside, but we?ve chosen a different path for ourselves to have our needs met,? said Nanette Logan, RN, who is a bargaining team member for nurses at the hospital. ?We have different issues than the other two hospitals have, and we collectively as a bargaining team decided that we wanted to try to go back to the table and deal with some of these issues.?
Logan said that while the Thousand Oaks nurses aren?t striking, they are still highly invested in the issues. ?We live in the community, we work at the hospital and we receive our health care at that hospital so we have a vested interested, and we feel that we can work with the hospital and get our needs met,? she said. ?We?re hoping for an amicable resolution.? SEIU Local 121 RN spokeswoman Aimee Barajas announced that nurses from Riverside and West Hills were still ready to strike against HCA, the world?s largest for-profit hospital chain.
West Hills nurses who participated in the strike, Estella Chavez who has worked at West Hills Hospital for nearly twenty years, and Elley Langsam who has worked there for thirty years, reported that patient services, patient products and hospital effectiveness have declined radically since the hospital was purchased from Humana ten years earlier by HCA.
The nurses picketed on 14th Street and Magnolia Avenue on four of the five days, staying home for Christmas. They were supported by California Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield and California State Senator Fran Pavley, and with approval from Governor Jerry Brown and sanctioning from LA Federation of Labor, and the Central Labor Council of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.
State Senator Pavley wrote to Edward Battista, "The nurses who have come into my office have been concerned primarily with improvements to patient care, staffing, and pay and benefits. " I encourage West Hills Hospital & Medical Center to offer benefits that will recruit and retain the best employees and will ensure that West Hills Medical Center continues to provide quality care to our community."
Assemblyman Blumenfield similarly wrote to Battista saying, "On behalf of the Registered Nurses and the community of West Hills, I'm asking your hospital to bargain in good faith with SEIU Local 121RN; to make sure that workers are treated fairly and equitably; to insure that changes in staffing or working conditions do not put patients and caregivers at risk; and, finally, to agree on a contract with strong protections for patients and workers."
Ultimately, union official Hughes said that the strike did help the nurses? cause. Few of the nurses in Riverside crossed the picket line. Some deliveries were not made because union drivers refused to cross the picket lines. "I think the hospital was a little surprised we did it," she said. "They asked us to call it off, but they didn't give us any guarantees on a contract."