Sutter nurses in Vallejo stage one-day strike over working conditions
(Photo by Matthew Keys for Solano NewsNet)
By: Solano NewsNet staff
Nurses and other health care workers from more than a dozen Sutter Health campuses in Northern California staged a one-day walkout on Monday.
The strike was approved in March while Sutter Health was in negotiations with the California Nurses Association over a new collective bargaining agreement covering health care workers at its hospitals and medical centers.
In a statement, union officials said the strike was called over health and safety concerns at Sutter Health hospitals. Union leaders also complained that Sutter Health was not allowing nurses and other key medical staff members to help participate in COVID-19 pandemic planning initiatives.
“They resist having nurses directly involved in planning and implementation of policies that affect all of us during a pandemic,” Renee Waters, a veteran Sutter Health trauma nurse, said in a statement released by the union. “We must address these issues and more. A fair contract is needed to retain experienced nurses, have sufficient staffing and training, and ensure we have the resources we need to provide safe and effective care for our patients.”
The strike was approved by Sutter nurses and health care workers at a meeting in March, and the union said advance notice was given to Sutter Health ahead of Monday’s walkout.
“Nurses are fighting back against Sutter putting profits before patients and health care workers,” Waters said.
Around 50 health care workers and their supporters picketed in front of the Sutter Solano campus in Vallejo on Monday, according to a count of participants by a Solano NewsNet photographer.
Chants decried Sutter Health’s alleged move to put profits ahead of patient care. At one point, a nurse who helped organize the walk-out reminded participants to engage in social distancing.
In a competing statement issued on Monday, a Sutter Health official colored the one-day protest as “costly and disruptive.”
“Union leadership [have] made it clear they are willing to put politics above patients and the nurses they represent,” the spokesperson said. “Our attention is on providing safe, high-quality care to the patients and communities we’re honored to serve[, and we] are confident in our ability to manage this disruption.”
A Sutter Health spokesperson said they were unsure how many of its employees did not show up to work in Vallejo on Monday.
Sutter Health, which operates as a not-for-profit medical organization, said it offered to provide "competitive salaries" of more than $140,000 to nurses and other health care workers, which it said was above the state average of $124,000. The health care provider also said it offered up to 41 days of paid time off each year and "several benefit plans that help our workforce plan for their retirement," among other perks.
Sutter Health also said it secured hundreds of millions of pieces of personal protective equipment, or PPE, during the coronavirus pandemic and "work[s] each day to reinforce a culture of safety that educates, equips and empowers staff to always speak up for safety."
But nurses and other health care workers at Sutter Health say the organization’s efforts do not go far enough.
“We have tried repeatedly to address the chronic and widespread problem of short staffing that causes delays in care and potentially puts patients at risk, but hospital administrators continue to ignore us,” Amy Erb, a registered nurse who works at a Sutter Health medical campus in San Francisco, said in a statement. “We have a moral and legal obligation to advocate for our patients. We advocate for them at the bedside, at the bargaining table, and if we have to, on the strike line.”
Union nurses and health care workers are scheduled to return to work on Tuesday.
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