City of Hope Nurses Stage Walkout : Health care: Officials call in temporary workers. The strike, the first in the hospital’s history, is over time off and job descriptions.

Nearly all 430 registered nurses at the City of Hope National Medical Center began the first strike in the cancer hospital’s 80-year history Tuesday.

Chanting, placard-waving nurses said they will picket the Duarte hospital around the clock until management agrees to resume talks on contract disputes over time off and job descriptions.

Meanwhile, City of Hope officials have temporarily hired replacement nurses and have no plans to transfer or turn away patients, said hospital spokesman Bill Brooks. No appointments or surgeries were canceled because of the strike at the internationally known hospital and research center.

“We have always put patient care first,” Brooks said. “No matter what happens, we will not allow that tradition to be interrupted.”

But outpatient Brad LeDuff disagreed with administrators’ statements that the strike was not disruptive. LeDuff, 35, said replacement nurses worked slowly and with uncertainty.

“I would not want to be admitted there,” said LeDuff, a cancer patient who had blood drawn Tuesday. “My girls (nurses) aren’t back there.”

Striking nurses, who are represented by the California Nurses Assn., estimated that fewer than 50 colleagues stayed on the job. Doctors, who are not represented by a union, are crossing picket lines, hospital officials said.

Union nurses have stockpiled food and compiled lists of part-time nursing jobs in anticipation of a prolonged walkout, said nurse Donica Mar, a strike leader. About 250 nurses, some in uniform, picketed Tuesday morning as hospital administrators watched in the shade of blooming rose bushes. Strikers waved signs that said: “S.O.S., Save Our Saviors,” and “We Give All Day. No Take Away.”

Contract negotiations broke off after a federal mediator failed to resolve differences between the two sides. The three-year contract expired June 1.

Money is not an issue. City of Hope nurses make an average of $65,000 annually in salary and benefits, making them among the area’s highest-paid nurses, administrators said.

Sticking points include a plan to change eight days of so-called “discretionary time off” into sick leave. Nurses still would have nine paid holidays and up to four weeks vacation after four years of service.

Also at issue is management’s demand for authority to change job descriptions for nurses. Union negotiators said the changes would open the door for administrators to replace registered nurses with licensed vocational nurses and medical technicians, who have less training. Hospital administrators said they only want the right to update job descriptions annually, based on changing needs.