Nurses to walk off the job

Thousands of registered nurses around the Bay are expected to walk off their jobs Friday and begin a 10-day strike at eight Bay Area hospitals affiliated with Sutter Health.

Locally, the walkout will affect Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland. The labor action also will hit San Leandro Hospital and Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley.

Roughly 4,000 nurses represented by the California Nurses Association union will be affected by the strike. The nurses say ongoing problems with patient care, understaffing, and their own health care and retirement benefits are at issue.

"I see no way this strike will not go forward," said Shum Preston, spokesman for the nurses association. "Sutter Health has not taken the nurses' concerns seriously."

Union and management representatives have not been able to reach an agreement since contract negotiations began in May. No new negotiations have been scheduled. Officials at Sutter Health, a nonprofit network of hospitals and doctors groups, insist that the real issue for the nurses association has to do with union- organizing rights.

"We are prepared for the strike on Friday," said Debbie Goodin, Mills-Peninsula's vice president of human resources. "It doesn't appear that the CNA has any intention of stepping back from its political agenda to focus on local nurses and a commitment to our patients."

Other Bay Area hospitals facing the strike include St. Luke's Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco; Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch; Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo; Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame; and Mills Health Center in San Mateo.

Reach Tim Simmers at 650-348-4361 or tsimmers@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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