LAKEPORT — Union employees at Sutter Lakeside Hospital protested a lack of progress in contract negotiations for 90 minutes Wednesday near the hospital”s main entryway.
Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) represents approximately 150 Sutter Lakeside Hospital employees, according to SEIU-UHW Community Political Coordinator Jim Araby. Of those, 36 union members showed for the hour-and-a-half-long picket, coming and going as individual schedules permitted.
“That”s a significant number, considering the size of the hospital and the amount of people able to come out on their shifts,” Araby said.
They held signs that bore messages such as, “safe staffing,” “retirement with dignity,” and “put patients first.” Two union representatives accompanied the group. According to Sutter Lakeside housekeeper and attendee Kimn Valencia, a security guard at one point asked the group to turn down the bullhorn it was using to broadcast messages such as, “We put patients first,” and “What do we want? A contract now!”
Short staffing, staff-to-patient ratios, job security and stalled contract talks were among concerns picketers expressed.
“We”ve had a number of bargaining sessions and they (Sutter Lakeside) haven”t handed anything back across the table, except for a couple of proposals, and those were all take-aways. And we”ve been bargaining since June,” Valencia said.
Valencia said the housekeeping department, where she has worked full-time for seven years, is short-staffed. She said per-diem employees otherwise guaranteed between one and 10 working days per pay period were filling in full-time without being reclassified, and therefore entitled to benefits.
“We have per diems that have been working there for over a year,” Valencia said.
The outpatient care unit where per-diem Certified Nursing Assistant Stefanie Edwards works faces the opposite problem. Edwards said the hospital recently changed its ratios to allow 16 patients per CNA, which means staffers are sent home sooner as patient levels drop.
“A lot of employees are not getting their hours, and we”re dependent on that to live,” Edwards said.
Sutter Lakeside spokesman Mitch Proaps said the hospital is following its usual negotiation procedures, which include reviewing and responding to the unions proposals as a group. He said the hospital received the union”s proposals in late September and plans to go to the table next in early November.
“A typical union tactic during labor negotiations is to try and stir the pot, and I”m afraid that is exactly what is occurring. It”s a rather tired refrain,” Proaps said.
Online Sutter Health literature entitled “Know the Facts About Why UHW is Really Striking Three Sutter Health Hospitals” accuses the union of launching the strikes in an effort to generate $7.8 million of annual revenue. The union proposed language that would prohibit hospital management from talking to employees during a union organizing campaign, according to the document.
“Sutter is outside other large hospitals in the industry in not offering that,” Araby said.
The picket coincided with one-day strikes at two Sutter Health facilities in Vallejo and Antioch, as well as at three Sutter-affiliated Alta Bates/Summit Medical Center sites in Oakland and Berkeley. Three other Sutter Health sites in Santa Rosa, Castro Valley and Roseville also held informational pickets rather than strikes.
“We didn”t want to pull someone out of the job and away from patients for a picket,” Valencia said.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com, or call her directly at 263-5636 ext. 37.
