County Is Bracing for Strike by Nurses

Los Angeles County health officials and labor leaders braced for a possible nurses strike next week as negotiations were suspended for the weekend.

“Things are progressively looking worse and worse,” union leader Dan Savage said Friday afternoon.

County officials, too, said bargaining efforts “may be breaking down.” Savage said that breaking off negotiations until Monday morning is not likely to leave enough time to iron out significant differences before an impending strike deadline, set for 11 p.m. Monday.

At issue are wage increases, fringe benefits, and working conditions for about 4,400 nurses working at six county hospitals and numerous health clinics, who are represented by Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union.

Irving Cohen, director of administration and finance for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said a strike could force the county to drastically curtail all health services--including closing its emergency rooms and shutting down hospital obstetrical services. At the hospitals, faculty supervising physicians and nurses in management positions would be assigned patient care duties. Patients who are in stable condition would be transferred to private hospitals that would accept them, and ambulances would be routed to private hospital emergency rooms.

“I think we could last probably two or three days” without the nurses, Cohen added.

Elliot Marcus, the county’s director of labor relations programs, said nurses have been given a choice between a two- or a three-year contract, both of which carry 5.5% pay raises, effective Nov. 1.

County officials say that nurses have been awarded salary increases amounting to 31.75% over the last four years, making their current salaries equivalent to those in the private sector.

But union leader Savage charged that the county is comparing the pay of veteran county nurses with junior private sector nurses and, even so, “the county nurses are 7% to 9% below parity.”

Other stumbling blocks in the negotiations, Savage said, include a health benefits package and parking fees--which the union wants modified so as not to penalize workers who periodically ride buses and car-pool.

In addition, the nurses are asking for better security and additional health and safety precautions.

Bob McCloskey, business agent for Local 660, said the wage package the county has offered nurses--a 5.5% raise over two years or 12.5% over three year--is not enough to attract sufficient numbers of nurses to fill vacant positions at the six county hospitals. Union nurses have long contended that the vacancies, which they estimate at more than 1,000, have resulted in unsafe working conditions for nurses and patients.