California Nurses Say They'll Strike, Without Talking Wages

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

November 10, 2014

As many as 18,000 nurses in Northern California are preparing for a two-day strike that will start Tuesday. Nurses plan to leave their posts at 7 a.m. and picket outside 21 Kaiser Permanente medical centers and clinics.

The placards nurses carry and the chants they repeat will say little about salaries or pensions. No economic proposals have even been put on the bargaining table yet...

... Instead, nurses are focusing on more than 35 operational proposals that remain unresolved after three months of bargaining. These demands include a call to fill more than 2,000 nursing positions that have been vacated in the last three years, better protections for use of sick leave or more flexibility over breaks, and more training and education.

Both sides have leaned on the recent Ebola scare to try to win PR points with the public. Nurses have demanded better protective gear and more training for caring with potential Ebola patients-calls that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention heeded by updating its federal guidelines last month.

Kaiser nurses say they still want more, and have timed the second day of their strike to coincide with nurse demonstrations across the country in a "National Day of Action" over Ebola preparedness.

The hospital system has tried to turn that argument around in light of the work stoppage.

"We are baffled by the union's tactics at this critical time," read an ad that Kaiser ran in Northern California newspapers Monday. Calling a strike now, "just as we are entering flu season, and when the nation and our members are concerned about the risk of Ebola, seems particularly irresponsible."...

... "Our main concern is patient care issues and safe staffing," says Zenei Cortez, co-president of the California Nurses Association and chair of the bargaining team for the Kaiser nurses.

She says Kaiser will only agree to changes that are "cost neutral," which is one reason the proposals are stuck in limbo...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/11/10/363043481/california-nurses-say-theyll-strike-without-talking-wages

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.

"cost neutral" because they must protect the exec suite bonuses and compensation promises...the true priority

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Specializes in Critical-care RN.

Watsonville and Salinas hospital joined the strike too !

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.

PICTURES FROM THE PICKET LINES

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Specializes in Dialysis.

Cost neutral? Their 1st quarter profits were up 44%. Does anyone know what they are talking about?

Kaiser Permanente's Q1 profits soar 44 percent, to $1.1 billion - San Francisco Business Times

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Cost neutral? Their 1st quarter profits were up 44%. Does anyone know what they are talking about?

Kaiser Permanente's Q1 profits soar 44 percent, to $1.1 billion - San Francisco Business Times

So the ACA has been very difficult for them as they saw their operating profits soar?

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Specializes in Dialysis.

These numbers are public so how can they negotiate in good faith when they are crying they are poor. They must think the nurses are stupid.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/kaiser-permanente-q2-net-income-up-25.html

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/11/kaiser-permanente-q3-420000-enrollees-profits-soar.html?page=all

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