Nurses To Hold One-Day Strike At Sutter Hospitals

Registered nurses will hold a one-day strike at San Leandro Hospital and Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley on Thursday.

The local walkouts are part of a statewide action by the California Nurses Association (CNA) and National Nurses United which are renegotiating contracts with Sutter Health.

Sutter runs both local facilities among nearly 100 medical centers located primarily in Northern California.

The union says the strike will include 2,000 registered nurses (RNs) in Southern California and 4,000 RNs at eight Bay Area hospitals that are part of the Sutter network.

The other Bay Area sites affected by the walkout are:

• Alta Bates Summit Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and Oakland;
• Mills-Peninsula Health Services hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo;
• Sutter Delta in Antioch;
• Sutter Solano in Vallejo.

The CNA said this is its second work stoppage. The union held a one-day to protest what it says were nearly 200 demands for contract concessions made by the Sutter despite being highly profitable since 2005.

Sutter spokeswoman Stacey Wells said this action was poorly timed and unnecessary.

"We’re disappointed that the nurses’ union called a strike, particularly during the holiday season when we all know only our sickest patients are in the hospital," she said.

Wells said Sutter met with CNA representatives Monday and reached a tentative agreement and has asked for more bargaining sessions in January in a further show of good faith.

But CNA spokesman Chuck Idelson said it was an overstatement to say that the union had reached an agreement with Sutter. 

He said that when the last walkout occurred in September, 200 differences separated the parties. Since then negotiators have solved about 50 of those issues.

He said the union met with Sutter on Monday and offered to call off the walkout if the health system withdrew its remaining demands. But that did not happen and so the union will proceed with the one-day action Thursday, he said.