Nurses working for the Sharp HealthCare hospital system, dissatisfied with a final contract offer from management, voted yesterday on whether to authorize a union-supported strike. þþVoting in shifts, the nurses evaluated what management described as its final offer, casting secret ballots either to accept the proposal or to give the hospital chain a 10-day notice to walk out. A final vote tally was expected late last night. þþþAs many as 2,800 nurses could walk out, affecting all five Sharp acute care hospitals and ancillary facilities. Interviews last night with nurses leaving the Four Points Sheraton, where the voting was held, suggested that most had voted no on the contract and yes on authorizing a strike. þþþÿThey want to keep wages below the community standard, yet they want to be the best health care system in the universe,ÿ said Maggie Dahms, a nurse in the OB-gyn unit at Sharp Grossmont. ÿThey need to show nurses that they value what we are doing at the bedside.ÿ þþþThe major sticking points of the three-year contract offered to the nurses by Sharp are wages and nurse-to-patient ratios, according to the Sharp Professional Nurses Network. A new contract would replace a contract that expires next Monday. þþþIf the nurses vote to authorize a strike, the union could file a 10-day notice to strike to management, although negotiations could also continue. There is still room to work out a deal, both sides said. þþþThree years ago, a similar decision by the nurses union to authorize a strike led to further negotiation and a settlement. þþþÿI don't think we are going to get to a strike situation,ÿ said Ky Lewis, senior vice president of human resources for Sharp HealthCare, adding that the hospital chain is taking precautions anyway. ÿIf we get to a strike situation, we have plans in place to provide quality care to our patients.ÿ þþþThis would include continuing to use nurses who don't strike, since walking out would be optional unless there is a lockout, and contacting nurse registries to provide temporary staff. þþþSharp administrators have presented the nurses with two proposals that are ÿvery substantial,ÿ said Diane Gage, a spokeswoman for the hospital chain. One contract offers seniority-based wage increases, Gage said, and the other offers an across-the-board wage increase of 19 percent over three years. þþþBut Sharp nurses say the chain would still pay them less than other local hospital systems, such as Kaiser Permanente. þþþFor example, according to charts put together by the union, a Sharp nurse with five years experience would be paid almost $5 less an hour in October of this year than a Kaiser nurse with the same experience. A raise of less than $2 an hour would kick in by October 2006. þþþÿEverything is going up, the cost of gas, housing,ÿ complained Pat Osborn, an operating room nurse and 29-year Sharp veteran. ÿA lot of nurses can't afford to buy (homes).ÿ þþþVeteran nurses, who say they were hired cheaply in the early 1990s before there was a nursing shortage, say they are often paid less than new hires, some of whom receive signing bonuses. þþþManagement's proposed seniority-based raises are unsatisfactory because they are capped at a certain point, said nurse Chris McGovern, president of the Sharp nurses union, a local affiliate of United Nurses Associations of California. þþþÿThe tenure-based system we want to see, it is about money, but it is (also) about fairness and justice,ÿ she said. þþþAside from wages, the nurses also want state-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios, which took effect in January, to be written into their contract. Sharp nurses have alleged that the hospital chain has not been complying with the ratios, complaining for the past several months of being overworked and unable to take breaks and lunches. þþþThe nurses union recently filed a complaint with the Department of Health Services accusing the hospital of not complying with the ratio requirements. Sharp administrators insist they are meeting the requirements. þþþThe idea behind putting the ratios into the contract, nurses said, is to give nurses more leverage when complaining to management about having too many patients or no relief for breaks. þþþÿWe can exert more pressure,ÿ said Judy King, a transplant coordinator at Sharp Metropolitan. þþþSharp administrators, while not putting the ratios into the contract, said they had reached a tentative agreement on the issue. þþþÿWhat we are prepared to agree with is that we will comply with state-mandated staffing ratios,ÿ Lewis said. þþþLewis and Gage had a very different take on the nurses motives for the dispute. They say the real sticking point is neither wages nor ratios but the union's desire for a closed shop, meaning that all nurses would have to join the union. Right now, union membership at Sharp is optional. þþþÿWe really believe that the real issue is union security, and they want all new nurses to pay dues,ÿ Gage said. þþþMcGovern said that while the union would prefer a closed shop – the union proposed to management a plan to have new nurses join the union after one year, while grandfathering out existing staff – this is not a deal-breaker. þþþÿIt is important to us as part of the whole package, but not the thing we will live or die on,ÿ she said.þ
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
