[NRSKarenRN]

California Small Business Association Condemns California Nurses ...

State's Small Business Owners Will Pay Higher Healthcare Costs Because of
Strikes and Union's Unrealistic Contract Demands

... "Healthcare providers have a fiduciary responsibility to hold the line
on costs for consumers. That means balancing their need to pay employees
well, while also ensuring that compensation packages are reasonable so as
not to unnecessarily burden healthcare consumers with even more costs.

"Lastly, it appears that CNA's motivation for conducting these strikes
is questionable. According to press reports, as a condition of settlement the union is seeking to force many of these hospitals to accept easier union organizing rights, which would be a boon for the union but bad for employees. CSBA believes that employees should have a right to choose for themselves whether or not to join a union, and we oppose these union 'neutrality' agreements that strip employees of this fundamental right.

"We are hopeful the parties will get back to the bargaining table and
avoid these unnecessary and costly strikes. All the while, hospitals must
do what they can to protect consumers from unreasonable cost increases."

[NRSKarenRN]

What's behind Sutter nurses' union strike

...The California Nurses Association is planning a 10-day strike at Sutter Health hospitals in...

[herring_RN]

The article says

"Healthcare providers have a fiduciary responsibility to hold the line on costs for consumers. That means balancing their need to pay employees well, while also ensuring that compensation packages are reasonable so as not to unnecessarily burden healthcare consumers with even more costs.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...04771940&EDATE=

Nurses have a fiduciary responsibility to our patients. We cannot do that if fatigued and hungry. Fatigue leads to accidents and mistakes.
The Sutter nurses say they are trying to get the hospitals to agree to obey the meal break relief required by law. How will that hurt the public?

I think a normal NLRB election lets people decide how they want to vote.

Sutter Health, which has faced tough criticism from some quarters in recent years for high prices, high profits and insufficient charity care, announced extremely healthy 2006 financial results on Friday, including a nearly 33 percent jump in net income to $587 million.

http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2007/04/09/daily80.html?jst=s_cn_hl

Maybe the hospital chain is trying to frighten the business owners. Why can't they pay for enough nurses?

...For tax year 2005, the last year for which tax returns are available, outgoing president and CEO Van R. Johnson earned a salary of $2,309,575. Sutter’s organizational development executive, James Farrell, made $777,177, while the Alta Bates Summit CEO made a mere $581,679. ...

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/i.../article/29558

[forrester]

Originally Posted by herring_RN

The article says
Nurses have a fiduciary responsibility to our patients. We cannot do that if fatigued and hungry. Fatigue leads to accidents and mistakes.
The Sutter nurses say they are trying to get the hospitals to agree to obey the meal break relief required by law. How will that hurt the public?

I think a normal NLRB election lets people decide how they want to vote.


Maybe the hospital chain is trying to frighten the business owners. Why can't they pay for enough nurses?

It's about time these obscene salaries were revealed. This is a trend in many healthcare facilities.
Another trend is the "Marriotization" of our hospitals. Seems they always have enough money for multimillion dollar lobbies and administrative suites.
We need a not-for-profit healthcare system.
We have too many hands in the pot, and healthcare executives have the biggest hands.
TENET recently hired Jeb Bush at 450,000 a year to sit on their Board, and that is "normal" for their Board members according to TENET.

Seems that money could have been better spent.

[czyja]

Originally Posted by NRSKarenRN

California Small Business Association Condemns California Nurses ...

"Healthcare providers have a fiduciary responsibility to hold the line
on costs for consumers. That means balancing their need to pay employees
well, while also ensuring that compensation packages are reasonable so as
not to unnecessarily burden healthcare consumers with even more costs.

All the while, hospitals must
do what they can to protect consumers from unreasonable cost increases."

I don't think for a minute that folks in the Bay Area buy into this half-baked rhetoric.

When this topic comes up for discussion around here (San Francisco) people are very supportive of the nurses. They know that nurses make a decent wage but they also know that nurses work hard at a difficult job.

People are smart enough to realize that money saved by healthcare companies by understaffing and underpaying nurses will not result in lower costs. Rather it will result in larger executive bonuses.

Frankly I think the SBA doesn't care about healthcare cost - most small businesses don't even offer health insurance to their employees. What they are really concerned about is a resurgence in organized labor. Although a union resurgence is unlikely it still scares the wits out them.

[forrester]

Originally Posted by czyja

I don't think for a minute that folks in the Bay Area buy into this half-baked rhetoric.

When this topic comes up for discussion around here (San Francisco) people are very supportive of the nurses. They know that nurses make a decent wage but they also know that nurses work hard at a difficult job.

People are smart enough to realize that money saved by healthcare companies by understaffing and underpaying nurses will not result in lower costs. Rather it will result in larger executive bonuses.

Frankly I think the SBA doesn't care about healthcare cost - most small businesses don't even offer health insurance to their employees. What they are really concerned about is a resurgence in organized labor. Although a union resurgence is unlikely it still scares the wits out them.

What does scare the SBA is the thought of rising health care costs, and the medicalindustrial complex is very good at using this scare tactic to their advantage. Never mind they have been one of the biggest contributors to the escalation of costs for more than 30 years

Our delivery system is a broken cart. Every politician talks about putting some kind of different animal in front of the cart to pull it, but no one wants to fix the cart.

We do some things VERY well, and we need a new system that preserves those things. We also waste a tremendous amount of healthcare resources on competitive stupidity.

We need to fundamentally restructure the delivery system.