By Carl Finamore
California nurses pour into their September 14-16 NNU national convention in San Francisco chanting "Strike!, Strike!, Strike!"
The sudden release of stored power could effortlessly describe earthquakes, of which we are quite acquainted in California. But this week, tremors of a various sort will shake the state from north to south.
The sudden release of pent up frustrations from far more than 23,000 registered nurses at 34 Northern and Central California hospitals will explode to the surface in a one particular-day strike on Thursday, September 22.
The operate stoppage affects two of California’s largest and most worthwhile hospital chains, Sutter Wellbeing and Kaiser Permanente, as nicely as Children’s Hospital Oakland.
“The strike at Sutter comes following nine months of failed negotiations,” Deborah Burger, RN, told me. Burger is president of National Nurses United (NNU) and co-president of its affiliate, the California Nurses Association (CNA).
“We staunchly refuse to be silenced on patient care protections,” extra Sharon Tobin, writing in a CNA press statement. Tobin is a 24-year RN at Sutter Mills-Peninsula in Burlingame, California.
“A frequent theme throughout management’s proposals is getting rid of our presence on committees that tackle important patient-care problems and nursing practices.
“Sutter does not want to hear about something that may cut into their huge earnings.”
Genuine to type, as nurse Tobin suggested, Sutter Wellness claims “the union’s proposals are out of touch. Demands like these would add tens of millions in added fees for individuals.”
We listen to this all the time in bargaining Burger responded, “so, we currently know Sutter is severe about reductions to patient care and cuts to employee pensions and wellbeing coverage.
“And, the same goes for Kaiser.”
“For instance, 1400 Kaiser pharmacists, represented by the Guild for Expert Pharmacists, just got a contract that, we strongly believe, contains substantial concessions we would not accept.”
In truth, the Guild, an independent union, reports on its internet site adjustments to their medical coverage and admits that their pensions are now “frozen.” In other words, previously accrued rewards remain but the amount never ever grows simply because Kaiser will no longer make contributions.
Guild vice president, Howard Hertz, commented that “the advantage alterations Kaiser is trying to impose punish men and women for their previous loyalty to Kaiser…they are not just wrong but immoral.”
Kaiser’s stance infuriates nurses as properly, particularly when threats to social safety and medicare grow every day.
The very same contentious bargaining has played out in Kaiser negotiations with NUHW more than the last year. NUHW president Sal Rosselli explained the troubles to me:
“Kaiser has produced over $ five.7 billion in income above the last two and a half years, and its executives get millions of dollars in compensation and as numerous as eight separate pension plans every single. There’s no economic justification for Kaiser’s insistence on cutting healthcare and retirement benefits for thousands of caregivers.
“There’s even less justification for Kaiser’s refusal to offer nurses, social workers and mental wellness specialists with the staff they require to supply Kaiser sufferers with secure and timely access to care.”
Kaiser Downey Psychiatric Social Worker David Mallon, an NUHW negotiating committee member, witnesses these troubles every day.
“For decades the clinicians at Kaiser have asked for far more staff. But there has been no basic alter more than the years in the attitude of the economic managers and principal executives at Kaiser: ‘Do far more with less and damned be the sufferers who don’t get much better with what we provide.’”
The unholy juxtaposition of record income and draconian cuts has jolted employees into action on September 22, resulting in the biggest Kaiser strike and the largest nurses’ strike in U.S. historical past.
But it does not stop there. There is far more background to be made.
Solidarity, Not Just a Slogan
1000 delegates attended representing close to 170,000 nurses in every single state of the union.
One thing very unprecedented is occurring on September 22.
In conjunction with a three-day work stoppage by 4000 National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), one more 17,000 CNA/NNU nurses will join their picket lines on the very first day of the stroll out.
“Kaiser RNs will strike in sympathy and support for [NUHW] Kaiser…frontline workers…to protest substantial reductions in healthcare and retirement coverage,” according to CNA’s press statement.
“In these desperate times, we need every other,” Burger explained to me.
Not so, according to Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Well being Program spokeswoman Gay Westfall, Senior Vice President, Human Sources.
She stated “simply place, Kaiser Permanente is not in contract negotiations with CNA – and our bargaining with NUHW does not affect CNA.”
Incorrect once more says Burger.
“Nurses inherently have an affinity for folks suffering hardships individuals just generating ends meet, struggling to provide for their families, postponing or rejecting advised medical care simply because they do not have the funds or since of insufficient insurance coverage.
“We see it all, on a every day basis.
“So, when we hear about Kaiser’s plans for take-aways and reductions in patient-care staffing, we are eager to help our NUHW co-employees and let them know they are undertaking the appropriate factor by resisting.”
An additional 2000 Kaiser members of Operating Engineers (OE), Regional 39, AFL-CIO, agree and have also determined to join NUHW pickets in a sympathy strike.
This can make a total of 17,000 nurses and 2000 engineers participating in what is referred to as a sympathy or solidarity strike, ie., honoring genuine picket lines of 4000 NUHW Kaiser co-workers who originally voted to strike.”
The day’s actions also contain, it ought to not be forgotten, one more 6000 CNA/NNU nurses conducting their very own separate strike at Sutter Hospitals and Children’s Hospital in Oakland, thus comprising 23,000 total nurses on strike for the day.
It is really a exceptional example of mass protest and genuine solidarity, long absent from labor disputes in this nation, either simply because of explicit contractual prohibitions, insufficient leadership courage or inadequate membership assistance.
In the situation of the NUHW Kaiser strike, a perfect storm came collectively by providing explicit legal protections for anyone respecting picket lines (1) by involving bold union leaders and, most crucial, by attracting informed and determined members via regular rounds of education on the troubles.
Burger also tersely observed that Kaiser’s belated concern for individuals is totally disingenuous, only intended to mislead the public in the course of the strike.
“We want people to know, CNA has set up patient-care committees at each and every operate website and at every facility, so that Kaiser can call upon us for any emergency.”
Solidarity for Some, Division for Other folks
Jim Clifford, Therapist, Kaiser San Diego and NUHW negotiator, proudly announced in a union leaflet that “psychologists, therapists, social workers, optical workers, wellness educators, dietitians, speech pathologists and audiologists are united in NUHW and we’re standing up and fighting back.
“And,” he stated, acknowledging help from other Kaiser workers, “we’re not alone.
“If Kaiser succeeds in enacting these cuts, it will influence all Kaiser workers, specially members of the Kaiser Service and Tech and MSW units represented by SEIU-UHW who will soon face the very same takeaways.”
But SEIU-UHW leaders do not see it that way.
Their spokesperson, Steve Trossman told me that “SEIU-UHW [Kaiser] members have their raises and rewards totally protected and guaranteed in their national agreement by way of September of 2013. Next year we will negotiate a new national agreement in which we will fight for and win spend raises, complete protection of all of our rewards, and enhanced career safety.
‘We have a program that we are confident in and we are not going to be distracted by the fabricated claims or desperate publicity techniques of a failing organization like NUHW.”
Trossman’s disparaging remarks toward NUHW underscores his union’s bitter dispute with NUHW more than representation of 45,000 Kaiser Service and Technical workers.
This has only grown worse given that the National Labor Relations Board lately accused SEIU-UHW of quite a few unfair labor practices tainting the last election in 2010, thus setting up one more union election contest between NUHW and UHW in the near future.
Probably this rivalry also accounts for UHW’s arguably overstated confidence in its nonetheless undisclosed “plan” that will somehow convince Kaiser to agree to “full protection of our advantages.”
When unions representing 19,000 workers take the dramatic and unprecedented step of announcing a solidarity strike supporting 4000 NUHW co-workers, it is simply because there are valid and reputable issues about Kaiser’s shameful and disgraceful intentions.
Ideally, all unions would follow the example of CNA and OE and solidarize with NUHW against management’s imminent threats to cut patient solutions and employee benefits.
It is a mistake, it looks to me, to blindly downplay actual dangers with a false self-confidence that assumes “raises and benefits are completely protected and guaranteed” and that mischaracterizes and minimizes reputable protests as “desperate publicity tactics.”
Significant divisions amongst unions, definitely in this certain case, can and need to be settled by way of a democratic and fair representation election soon to be scheduled.
And all of it can and need to also be done without jeopardizing picket line unity at the work internet site.
Standing aside on September 22 only advantages the employer.
(one) In Children’s Hospital of Oakland v. California Nurses Association, 283 F.3d 1188 (9th Cir. 2002), the federal appellate court for the Ninth Circuit (which contains California) explained that the right to engage in a sympathy strike, that is, the appropriate to strike for the goal of supporting the trigger of workers represented by a various union, is a appropriate protected below Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 USC §157.
Carl Finamore is Air Transport Personnel, Neighborhood Lodge 1781, IAMAW, delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com
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