County May Impose Contract on Nurses : Labor: Hospital administrators are poised to take the final offer to supervisors. Union hopes for new talks to avert a strike.

After 11 months of dickering with nurses over pay and seniority issues, Ventura County Medical Center administrators are poised to ask the Board of Supervisors to impose a salary and benefits package on the health-care workers.

Nurses at the county hospital have flatly rejected what the county says is its best and final offer, and no new contract talks are scheduled.

But the local chapter of the California Nurses Assn.--whose members voted Wednesday to authorize a walkout--is still hoping to avoid what would become the first strike of Ventura County’s public nurses.

“We still feel there’s room for negotiation,” said Tammy Gamblin of the California Nurses Assn., which is representing the county nurses in bargaining talks for the first time.

“Our hope is that the county is re-examining its position and will go back to the bargaining table,” Gamblin said.

The county proposal would allow hospital administrators to call off nurses scheduled to work when the number of patients is low. It also would switch some shifts to trim overtime costs and allow managers to lay off nurses from individual units rather than strictly by seniority.

Local union members say the county’s offer would undermine seniority rights and weaken the quality of patient care at the county’s lone public hospital. But county officials say they have no more room for negotiating.

“It is a reluctance on (the nurses’) part to face reality,” said Ed McLean, Ventura County’s assistant director of personnel.

“Revenues are down and we need to make substantial changes to keep the hospital viable,” said McLean, who declined to say how the county would respond to a nurses’ strike. “And they’re basically saying no.”

The number of hospital days attributed to uninsured patients--money McLean said is unrecoverable--is projected to swell to more than 5,000 this year, compared to 1,000 in 1993.

The county’s final offer would save the hospital $750,000 a year, a hospital spokeswoman said.

But nurses’ union members, working without a contract since June, say they are being singled out by county administrators who would--among other things--replace licensed nurses with unlicensed health care providers.

They also complain that the new salary package would cut their pay by 7% and allow administrators to lay off nurses with high seniority.

“The very things that guarantee quality care are the very things being cut,” said Judith Overmyer, a nurse who also co-chairs the local union chapter. “Meanwhile, upper management and administration costs are going through the ceiling.”

McLean said it would be “preposterous” to suggest that the hospital would replace licensed nurses with unlicensed workers. The county is merely requesting the authority to send home nurses when there are low numbers of patients, he said.

“If an entire unit had shut down one day, we might send home everyone within that unit,” McLean said. “But that wouldn’t affect the staffing in other areas.”

The California Nurses Assn. began representing the 200 or so registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses and psychiatric technicians at Ventura County Medical Center in 1992.

This is the first contract the nurses association has tried to negotiate with Ventura County. It has made no progress in two dozen meetings held since April, 1993.

Hospital administrators are adamant about the current offer being the last, McLean said.

“There’s not much else that can be done at this point” other than ask the Board of Supervisors to adopt a resolution imposing a salary package without the nurses’ consent, he said.

“We either just keep going in limbo like we are, or we go with our last, best final offer,” McLean said. “We intend to stand by our last, best final offer.”

He declined to say when he would ask the supervisors to approve the contract. The request is not up for discussion at the next meeting, however.

“Our not being on the agenda next week, we think, is a very positive sign,” Gamblin said.

Rank-and-file union members said Thursday they hope to avoid a strike, but would walk off the job if need be.

“All we’ve met (from the county) are roadblocks,” said Tim Lowe, a surgery nurse with 14 years of experience. “They’ve said what they want, but they don’t want to listen to us. It’s come to a point now where we have to do something.”

Cece Williams, a women’s health center nurse with three decades of nursing experience, said the county has never bargained in good faith.

“We’re not secretaries, we’re professionals,” she said. “This is a (health care) practice we believe in. We’re serving the minorities and the poor. The way we’ve been treated. . . . We’ll do what we have to do.”