1-Day Strike Hits Hospitals in Bay Area

In what was called the Bay Area’s largest ever one-day hospital strike, 4,000 nurses and other workers traded patient charts for picket signs Thursday to protest what they described as worsening working conditions and declining health care standards.

The 24-hour walkout, which affected 10 Northern California hospitals, sent officials scrambling to avoid any catastrophes caused by the staffing shortages. Although emergency rooms remained open, many facilities canceled elective surgeries and outpatient services, hired temporary workers and advised pregnant women to contact their doctors before heading to maternity wards.

At Summit Medical Center in Oakland, an estimated 760 health care workers walked off their jobs. About 200 picketers walked the blocks outside the hospital, carrying signs that read “Sutter: Profits Before People” and shouting, “We are health care workers fighting back.”

Sal Rosselli, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 250, which represents the hospital workers, said the union had been negotiating with hospital officials since the last union contract expired May 1.

Workers demanded a larger voice in how health care is provided, including a say in staffing levels, he said, adding that the strike was no more reckless than poor patient care that has resulted from years of mergers, staff cutbacks and profit-seeking by the hospitals.

“This is a last resort,” Rosselli said. “Health workers don’t like to strike. We have a conscience and would rather be taking care of our patients. But we’ve got to get the attention of these people.”

Bill Gleeson, a spokesman for the Sacramento-based Sutter Health, said the striking workers “abandoned their patients for a picnic and a parade.”

“They’re trying to achieve control over staffing of our hospitals,” he said. “That’s not their role. That’s a management right.”

Statewide, hospital industry officials monitored the strike, saying the protest was unlikely to remain confined to Northern California.

The SEIU is among the largest unions statewide, and most of the hospitals targeted by the strike are part of chains--Catholic Healthcare West and Sutter Health--with wide geographic reach. Only two of the 10 hospitals are independent.

“This is being driven by organized labor,” said Jim Lott, vice president of the Healthcare Assn. of Southern California, a hospital trade group. “We don’t see them stopping at the county line or mid-state.”

Lott said the momentum is stronger in Northern California because it gets greater attention from policymakers in nearby Sacramento. “I fully expect we will see that activity migrate down here,” he said. “Everybody’s on alert.”

The latest health care strike comes as 1,730 nurses at two Stanford hospitals are in their fourth week of a walkout.

Lott said unions have far less penetration in Southern California hospitals, but that could be changing, especially after the successful janitors’ strike. That protest energized low-wage workers, including some in the health care industry.

Thursday’s strike occurs at a difficult time for the hospital industry and its workers. With a tight squeeze on Medicare, Medi-Cal and managed care payments, many hospitals are barely surviving. In California, where managed care has made its greatest inroads, more than 60% of hospitals are operating in the red, said Jan Emerson, a spokeswoman for the California Healthcare Assn., which represents about 450 hospitals statewide.

At the same time, the state is suffering a growing shortage of registered nurses--which has led to increased overtime and tight staffing. Most of the strikers, however, are licensed vocational nurses, technicians, respiratory therapists and others.

Carolyn Kemp, a spokeswoman for Summit Medical Center and Berkeley’s Alta Bates Medical Center, said those two facilities canceled 400 elective surgeries and transferred 50 patients--including 29 children--to other hospitals Thursday as a precautionary measure.

“This strike has been hugely disruptive to people’s lives,” she said. “It’s just plain irresponsible.”

Union President Rosselli said health care workers are tired of seeing hospitals put profits over patients.

“These places take over community hospitals and cut staffing and services to the bone,” he said. “They take millions of patient care dollars out of the community to fuel their corporate expansions.”

Gerry Hinkley, a health care attorney who represents hospitals and other providers, said that despite the walkout from 6 a.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. today, it was in most cases business as usual.

“One day is an annoyance; it doesn’t put anybody out of business,” he said. “The strike is a ploy to win public opinion on an issue health care workers feel the institutions have ignored.

“This is a bitter disagreement but it’s not just about wages. Workers are warning people about the care they’re going to receive in the hospital, because they’re saying there is no staff to do the job right.”