Nurses Greet Successful Union Tally With Glee

After almost 10 months of organizing and a tense final hour tallying every yea and nay vote, newly unionized nurses at two Ventura County hospitals basked Friday in their 249 to 207 victory.

“I feel fantastic,” said Lisa Fabian, a nurse at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard and a union supporter. “We did so much groundwork and footwork to get the word out. I’m absolutely relieved and thrilled.”

About 476 nurses, 92% of those registered at St. John’s in Oxnard and St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo, showed up during one of three voting periods Thursday.

The results of the election came back about 10:30 p.m., after being counted by National Labor Relations Board officials.

Lisa Hubbard, a spokeswoman for Service Employees International Union, said, “Hurray for nurses,” in a phone interview Friday. “It’s wonderful to see a group of nurses come together to work on the issues they are concerned about. Now they have a way to tackle the problems with staffing, patient care and nurse retention that they raised in their campaign.”

Nurses at the two hospitals, like nurses all over the country, are feeling squeezed by hospitals operating in the managed care era of rising costs and lower insurance payments, Hubbard said.

“Over the past two years, more nurses have formed unions than in the last 15 years,” she said. “What has happened is that managed care cost-cutting has had a devastating effect on hospitals. Hospital administrators, in turn, have been cutting positions and trying to cut other corners to save money.”

In this atmosphere, she said, nurses are often required to work more hours, assume heavy patient loads and adjust to “floating,” which is moving around the hospital working unfamiliar jobs.

Unions are a way to protect against hospitals spreading nurses too thin, Hubbard and others said.

“By forming unions, they can walk more as equals with hospital management in the highly competitive health-care industry,” Hubbard said.

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One hospital administrator, who was present during the ballot counting, said he hoped to have a good working relationship with the union but didn’t think the nurses needed the union to negotiate.

“We respect their right to make that choice, but I guess it’s fair to say I’m disappointed,” said Charles Padilla, an administrator at St. John’s in Oxnard. “In my opinion, this won’t solve the frustrations that most of us in health care have.”

Padilla said the biggest problems facing the health care industry are insufficient resources for health care professionals and a shortage of nurses.

“Because of the shortage, nursing salaries would go up anyway,” he said. “In fields where there is a shortage of workers, they can call the shots without paying dues to make that happen.”

Dues for the union will be about $33 a month, but it has not been decided whether membership would be mandatory, Padilla said.

Of the county’s eight general hospitals, two others are unionized--Los Robles and Ventura County medical centers. And most of the eight are losing money, state records show. Both St. John’s hospitals have been operating in the red for at least a year and a half. But Padilla said they expect to break even by the middle of this year.

Catherine Sims, a 16-year nursing veteran who works in the mother and infant unit at St. John’s in Oxnard, said she doesn’t know how union membership will change her job because she has never been a union member before.

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She said she supports the union because it provides avenues for collective bargaining.

“What made a difference for me was being told that if someone is in a contract that is not being followed she can have a union person go with her to talk to management,” Sims said. Without a union representative, nurses would be reluctant to voice complaints, she said.

“Everyone has sat in front of a supervisor and thought, ‘What have I done now?’ It’s like going to the principal, because there is such a power imbalance. Having someone who says, ‘Yes you are within your rights,’ is very important.”

Sims also said the union helps establish grievance procedures for those who want to complain about issues like under-staffing.

Union support has been growing since March, when the hospital announced a $5-an-hour pay increase for some nurses, rousing the ire of those who did not get the raise.