RNs Join Other Nurses in Bay Area Hospital Strike

Registered nurses at half a dozen major hospitals here walked off their jobs Tuesday, forcing hospital administrators to transfer patients, postpone elective surgeries and consolidate wards.

The 2,000 registered nurses joined 1,700 licensed vocational nurses and other health care workers who are in the second week of a walkout at seven hospitals.

Public health officials feared that the strike could spread to San Francisco General Hospital, the main county-run facility. Nurses there have set a strike deadline of Monday, and talks have broken off.

Supervisors and nurses brought in from Sacramento, Southern California and out of state worked 12-hours shifts to fill the void left by the 2,000 nurses. While five of the six hospitals kept emergency rooms open, only 60% of the beds were filled.

The strike came after a 37-hour session ended Monday without an agreement. No new talks were scheduled.

Nurses are seeking a 13% wage increase in a one-year contract to bring salaries to between $35,000 and $40,000. That would push their pay well above the national average of about $28,000, but they note that the Bay Area cost of living is among the highest in the nation.

Karen Henry, chief negotiator for the hospitals, accused the nurses of refusing to put to a vote a final offer on a three-year contract that would have raised pay 12% to 14% in the first year.

However, Anderson said the new offer amounted to only 18% over three years. She also said hospitals want nurses to work 12-hour shifts in some cases, and to accept reduced health benefits.

The strike affects Children’s, Marshall Hale Memorial, Mt. Zion, St. Francis and St. Mary’s in San Francisco and Seton Medical Center in Daly City to the south. Health care workers have struck all those six and Pacific Presbyterian in San Francisco.

With nurses at Children’s and Mt. Zion on strike, the walkout affects two of five San Francisco-area hospitals with wards equipped to provide the highest level of intensive care for infants. Mt. Zion and Children’s, which had a total of 41 infants in the units on Friday, sent all but 14 to other hospitals.

Henry, noting that the remaining three Bay Area hospitals equipped to treat the infants are full, accused the nurses of refusing to provide staff for the intensive care wards.

“If there is any kind of an emergency, absolutely, nurses will come in,” Anderson said. “But we are not going in just because they are getting panicky. . . . What they should do is call Karen Henry and tell her to settle.”