Monday, October 1, 2007

Nurses Strike on Oct. 10 & 11

The California Nurse Association (CNA) on Friday, September 28, gave a 10 days warning, stating that nurses from around Northern California, and mainly in the Bay Area, are planning to strike for two days, scheduled on October 10 and 11. The strikes may be called off if there are substantial progress before Oct. 10, if not, the strikes could potentially get longer and messier. Around 5,000 to 5,500 nurses will be on strike from the 16 hospitals of the Sutter Health chain in the Bay Area, the Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland, and the Fremont-Rideout Health Group in Yuba City and Marysville. Approximately 500 nurses at Millls-Peinsula Medical Center plan to strike on those days.

Their concerns include safe patient care practices, retirement security, proposed reductions in their health care benefits, the ratio of hospital staffs to patients, and plans to reduce patient services in San Francisco, San Leandro, and Santa Rosa. Nurses accuse Sutter of caring more about profits than about patients.

The nurses ignored the voting of the new contract, which proposed a 25 percent wage increase over three years (another source says 21.5 percent over four years), a 15 percent pay hike the first year, no-premium health care for nurses and their families, and increases in the nurses' retirement health care accounts according to The Daily Journal. Sacramental Business Journal states that the proposal also included enhanced funding for nurses' education and training and a "team bonus" of up to $2,100 per nurse if the contract had been signed before Sept. 30. Rather than talking on the proposal to Shutter Health directly, the CNA is negotiating with each hospital.

Strikes are becoming more and more common nowadays, with this and sanitary works against Waste Management in Alameda County awhile ago... Do you have any opinions on strikes? Do you suppose the nurses in this case? What are the pros and cons?

I personally do not really see the point for strikes. Sure they bring the message that the strikers are important and that their concerns should be addressed, but what would happen to all the people who count on these strikers do that day, or those days. In this case, it seems that it is a disadvantage for nurses to strike. What would all the patients do without them? What would you do if you were a nurse? How would your respond if you were the hospital owner?

2 comments:

Ryan Landis said...

Ok, if I was a multi-billionaire and the head of a hospital, a considrable possibility for my future, I would not allow the strikers to strike. Now I know that sounds pretty awful, but someone has to either bargain or give in because nurses not at a hospital leaves doctors and patients, making certain that not that much will get done. However, I do believe in striking, or at least the threat of it. It is a very influential way to get one's point across, but it is like cards and bluffing, one has to hope not to get caught. If someone is willing to strike, they are willing to lose his/her job. So as a boss, that either means they are taking a stand that they strongly believe in and maybe I could compensate a little, or it means that I am going to be hiring a lot of new graduates at a cheaper price!

Shieva said...

i had heard about this strike but i volunteer at mills and i havent heard anything from the nurses about attending the strike. i volunteer saturday so maybe ill ask them? but i do agree with ryan that someone must give in and both sides need to compromise something so that both sides are content.