Striking Nurses OK Pact With Red Cross

Striking nurses ended their 10-day-old walkout against Southern California Red Cross facilities Tuesday, ratifying a new three-year contract that includes wage increases and partial guarantees on staffing ratios that had been a key issue in the dispute.

The nurses will return to work today, ending their first strike ever, said Dee Contreras, chief of the nurses bargaining committee.

Negotiators for the Red Cross and the nurses, represented by Service Employees International Union Local 535, reached agreement at 7 a.m. Tuesday after a lengthy bargaining session at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor headquarters. The 200 nurses approved the contract Tuesday afternoon.

Red Cross officials said throughout the strike that they had maintained an adequate blood supply to serve the needs of area hospitals with supplies from other Red Cross facilities across the country. But the Red Cross did not want the strike to drag on because of the potential for shortages developing and because the Red Cross historically has had good relations with organized labor.

Union Donors

About 38% of all blood donated to the Red Cross comes from union members, according to Andrew Banks, assistant director of the Center for Labor Research and Studies at Florida International University in Miami.

While the new contract was approved by a comfortable vote of 126 to 49, many nurses said they remain concerned about one of the major issues in the strike--staffing ratios.

Contreras said the nurses had obtained a side letter agreement that a nurse will have to obtain blood from no more than three donors at one time. The nurses had said throughout the strike that the Red Cross had been trying to increase the ratio to one nurse for four donors and that this would endanger donor safety.

Under the agreement, the Red Cross retains the right to have a fourth donor positioned on a bed waiting to give blood. Many nurses said this could create problems because “waiting donors” occasionally become ill and need assistance.

“The language in the agreement is not perfect,” said Contreras, but she said it is adequate to ensure donor safety.

“I voted ‘yes’ because the negotiating team said it was the best they could do,” said Vivian Arakai, a veteran registered nurse. “There might be a lot of grievances if they try to make us handle more than three people at a time.”

“We think those side letters, which are good-faith agreements, take care of the problem,” said Red Cross spokeswoman Gerry Sohle.

She said the agency thinks the new contract is “a good agreement.”

“We’re very happy the strike is over,” Sohle said.

Special Uses

The nurses also said the Red Cross agreed on a ratio of one nurse for each two pheresis donors. A pheresis donor is one whose blood platelets are separated out for special uses, such as the treatment of leukemia patients. It is a more complicated and time-consuming process than normal blood donation.

Contreras also said the nurses had obtained good wage hikes, although not as much as they had been seeking. Under the new contract, licensed vocational nurses, who currently earn top pay of $1,570 a month, will have their wages boosted to $1,726 a month, an increase of nearly 10%. That will increase to $1,821 on April 1, 1988, and to $1,921 on April 1, 1989.

Registered nurses, who previously had a top scale of $2,041 a month, will have that boosted immediately to $2,123 monthly, an increase of about 4%. That will be raised to $2,208 a month in April, 1988, and to $2,296 in April, 1989.

The pay gap between registered nurses and licensed vocational nurses, which was $471 a month at the start of the strike, will be narrowed to $375 by the end of the contract. The nurses had maintained that the differential should be reduced because the two groups of nurses have substantially similar duties at the Red Cross.

Head nurses, who are registered nurses and supervise the work of other nurses, previously had a top scale $2,223 a month. That will be increased immediately to $2,388 a month and jump to $2,484 in 1988 and $2,583 in 1989.

Contreras said the nurses also won “parenting leave” benefits and that the Red Cross agreed to give 48 hours notice--whenever possible--before reassigning a nurse from one facility to another.