Union Targets Nurses

The California Nurses Assn. filed a petition with a federal labor board Tuesday seeking to unionize registered nurses at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, one of the largest hospitals in the West.

If the 1,800 nurses at the Los Angeles hospital vote to join the union, it would be the union’s largest organizing victory in years. Last fall, more than 1,300 nurses at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center voted for CNA representation.

An election at Cedars-Sinai could be held as soon as 30 days if the National Labor Relations Board certifies the union’s petition.

“It’s pretty historic, actually, when you think about it,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the union, which represents about 45,000 nurses statewide.

Cedars-Sinai Vice President Grace Cheng said the hospital “will be working to ensure that our staff has the facts that they need to make an informed choice.” She could not provide more specifics because the hospital only learned of the union petition late Tuesday.

“While we respect the employees’ legal right to join a union if they so choose, our preference is to continue to deal directly with our employees,” Cheng said.

One longtime Cedars-Sinai nurse said she supports unionization because of the gains that the union has achieved at other hospitals. Eva Buenconsejo, who works in the hospital’s intensive-care unit, said she and her colleagues want to negotiate such issues as limits to mandatory overtime, nurse-to-patient ratios, richer retirement benefits and seniority-based raises

Asked if Cedars-Sinai overlooked nurses or mistreated them, Buenconsejo said, “They’re really not ignoring us, but we’d just feel better with this protection, with collective bargaining.”

This spring, the union won major concessions after threatening a strike at the University of California’s five medical centers. Under the accord, which covered the system’s 8,000 nurses, UC will pay nurses based on seniority and boost salaries an average of 19% to 25% over the next three years.