900 Nurses at 2 Kaiser Facilities Poised to Strike

Nearly 1,000 Kaiser Permanente registered nurses may go on strike Tuesday in the second walkout to hit the nation’s largest health maintenance organization in a month, union officials said Friday.

Unlike the earlier contract dispute, the current negotiations involve nurses at only one Kaiser hospital--its 632-bed Sunset Boulevard medical center--and a single long-term care facility in Inglewood that accommodates up to 40 inpatients.

Kaiser negotiators met with Local 535 of the American Federation of Nurses on Thursday for about 13 hours, but no contract agreement was reached, said Jonni Benson, the local’s president.

Contract talks resumed Friday afternoon and were to continue through the weekend in an attempt to avert a strike by the 900 nurses. Their three-year agreement expires at midnight Monday, Benson said.

The last labor dispute involving Kaiser was a weeklong walkout by more than 11,000 clerical, technical and service workers that ended with a new contract approved April 9.

Benson said key points of disagreement in the dispute between Kaiser and the nurses include staffing decisions, the performance of non-nursing duties and overtime pay rates.

“The nurses would like more input on how the staffing is done. They are the individuals who are working with the patients,” Benson said. She said work assignments are now decided by clerks and administrative nurses not directly involved in patient care.

The registered nurses also say they have had to assume duties beyond their job description, such as emptying trash containers and heating meal trays, Benson said.

She said the company’s latest offer included a cut of overtime pay the nurses have received for several years.

“They want the 12-hour nurse to work for straight time, instead of time-and-a-half after eight hours,” Benson said.

Another point of dispute is the length of the contract being negotiated. The union wants a one-year pact, while the company is seeking a three-year agreement.

“At this point, the probability of a strike is high unless we get a lot of changes in the next three days,” she said.

Seib declined to detail Kaiser’s position on the contract because talks are still in progress.

She said Kaiser is ready for another strike, and has kept the number of patients at the Sunset facility lower than normal by transferring some patients and canceling or postponing elective surgeries.

She said supervisors and nurses from Northern California and Oregon will fill in for striking surgical, critical care and floor nurses.

Benson said the Sunset hospital is the only Kaiser facility in Southern California equipped to care for patients who have undergone open-heart surgery or bone marrow transplants, but Seib said a strike by critical care nurses should not affect those patient services.

Most Kaiser members who would normally be admitted to the Sunset Boulevard hospital will be diverted to other facilities, such as those in Woodland Hills or Panorama City, which are equipped to handle the additional patient load, Seib said.

If an agreement is approved by both bargaining teams, the proposed contract would be submitted to members at meetings Monday afternoon and evening, Seib said.

The last strike against Kaiser by members of the American Federation of Nurses occurred in 1984 and lasted five weeks, Benson said.