Thousands of Sutter nurses will lose 5 days of pay after one-day strike at CA hospitals
Sacramento-based Sutter Health has locked out thousands of registered nurses who hit 15 of the health care giant’s Northern California sites with a one-day strike, leaders of the California Nurses Association said Wednesday.
“Sutter Health is choosing to retaliate against its registered nurses for striking to protect their patients by refusing to allow these nurses to return to work for an additional four days,” union leaders said in a statement.
In a statement, Sutter Health representatives said management had informed nurses before they walked out that they would not be able to return to work until Saturday.
“When the union threatens a strike we must make plans that our patients, teams and communities can rely on,” said a Sutter Health spokesperson. “Part of that planning is securing staff to replace nurses who have chosen to strike, and those replacement contracts provide the assurance of five days of guaranteed staffing amid the uncertainty of a widespread work stoppage.”
The action affects roughly 1,900 nurses at Sutter Roseville Medical Center, Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital, the Sutter Center for Psychiatry in Sacramento and 11 other hospitals. However, the company allowed nurses who worked at the Sutter Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice in Santa Cruz to return to work.
The nurses union described the action as “a completely unnecessary and vindictive anti-union move.”
“We know from past one-day strikes that other hospital systems do not lock out their nurses for exercising their labor voice and rights,” union leaders said. “Nurses who are regularly scheduled to work during this lockout period will lose those days of pay. We urge Sutter to respect the nurses’ strike and let all nurses return to work.”
The nurses union and its affiliate Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union have said they and management negotiators have reached a standoff in labor contract negotiations over staffing and pandemic preparedness. They want greater transparency about the company stockpiles of personal protective equipment, improvements in training for pandemic-level diseases and workers’ compensation coverage when nurses contract diseases that widely afflict the patient population they are serving.
Nurses told The Bee that the company rationed masks during the height of the pandemic and often has called upon them to work double shifts because staffing was not sufficient.
In a statement issued Monday, Sutter said it has been working to hire and train additional workers, and it makes every effort to maintain safe working conditions.
