Press Releases
23,000 California RNs on One-Day Strike Today
For Immediate Release
September 22, 2011
From Santa Rosa to Fresno and from Sacramento to San Jose, thousands of registered nurses today walked picket lines, joined rallies and sent a strong message to three large hospital employers that RNs will not accept reductions in patient services or cuts to nurses and other caregivers.
The one-day strike of 23,000 RNs, members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United ends Friday morning at 7 a.m., though Sutter and Children’s have been threatening a lockout of nurses for additional days.
Friday Rally- Nurses Seek to Return to Work
Children’s Hospital Oakland, 7 a.m., 747 52nd St., Oakland
Striking RNs at Sutter Alta Bates in Berkeley (left) and Kaiser Oakland.
Click here to see more strike photos on Flickr
See a list of hospitals where RNs went on strike in northern California
See Sutter profits and executive salaries
See services being cut by Sutter
At a boisterous rally at Sutter Alta Bates Thursday morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka praised the RNs as “the last line of defense for patients” and excoriated the corporate assault by Sutter. “They disrespect you by attacking your healthcare, your retirement benefits, your right to advocate for patients, and now they want to force you to work when you are sick. Having sick nurses care for sick patients is sick.”
Trumka said it was 23,000 nurses taking a stand, but that they were joined by “millions of patients” and had the support of working people across the country.
“When nurses are on the outside, there’s something wrong on the inside,” said CNA Co-President DeAnn McEwen at the rally. She called the sweeping concession demands by Sutter “drastic, unwarranted, and unconscionable. They’re harming patients and we’re standing in the gap.”
“Nurses will never be silenced in standing up for our patients and our communities, or our members and our families,” says Children’s Oakland RN Martha Kuhl.
Key issues in the strike:
Sutter RNs are protesting 200 sweeping demands by Sutter executives that would:
- Restrict their ability to effectively advocate for patients
- Effectively force nurses to work when sick, dangerously exposing extremely ill patients to infection.
- Sharply reduce nurses’ healthcare coverage and retiree health benefits.
- The Sutter RNs are also protesting years of widespread cuts in patient care services
Sutter is making these demands and cutting services despite amassing $3.7 billion in profits the past half decade. Sutter pays 20 top executives more than $1 million in salaries.
Kaiser RNs are striking to support Kaiser co-workers who are facing management demands for deep cuts in their health coverage and retirement plans.
Children’s Oakland RNs are protesting management efforts to cut their health coverage, demands they say would make it prohibitively expensive for nurses to bring their own children to get care at the hospital where they work, and inadequate staffing at the hospital.
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