Registered nurses at Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to authorize the RN negotiating team to call a strike if an agreement with the giant Sutter Health chain is not reached, the California Nurses Association/ National Nurses Organizing Committee announced.

The vote comes after hospital officials walked out of negotiations after presenting a "last, best and final" proposal that is inferior to Northern California standards in patient care protections, that includes sweeping reductions in healthcare coverage for the RNs. The nearly 300 Sutter Delta RNs have been in bargaining since the contract expired last September 30, and have been working under the expired contract since.

CNA/NNOC represents over 5,000 registered nurses in 14 Sutter hospitals throughout Northern California. Negotiations are taking place in 10 of those hospitals.

Sutter's substandard healthcare proposal unacceptable

Sutter Delta RNs are particularly incensed with a proposal that would sharply reduce their choices of doctors and other providers while substantially increasing out-of-pocket healthcare costs for RNs and their families.

Many RNs could lose access to doctors and other caregivers they have counted on for years. While curbing freedom of choice, Sutter wants the nurses to pay far more - demanding a huge increase in premium co-pays and deductibles for health coverage.

CNA Sutter Division Director, Bonnie Castillo, RN called the demand "insulting to caregivers who have devoted years of service to this hospital and their community. It is outrageous that Sutter Delta would seek to seriously undermine health security and choice for their RNs."

Patient care protections key to contract talks

Another key area of dispute is patient care protections. The RNs have proposed that the hospital agree to include specific RN-to-patient ratios in their contract to assure compliance with the state law and to stop assigning patients directly to charge RNs, who are also responsible for clinical assignments, a step that would significantly improve staffing. Other Sutter hospitals have already stopped that practice.

"In this day in age, we should not have to accept a contract that represents a step backwards in time in regards to patient safety and retirement security," said Bonnie Morgan, an operating room RN and a member of the CNA RN negotiating team who has been at Delta for 18 years.

"The RNs who work at this hospital have chosen to be here, this is our community, but our ability to provide optimal patient care is being compromised. There is an exodus of experienced RNs that will only get worse if we don't provide the same standards and incentives offered by most Northern California hospitals- retiree health coverage and patient care protections."

"Our hospital has been out of compliance with the safe patient staffing ratio law in many units over many years," said nurse negotiator Suzanne Fleeger, an emergency department RN. "The ratios when properly followed allow us to provide better patient care which results in better patient outcomes. The nurses see this every day when the ratios are properly followed. These hospitals need to follow the ratios."

Contract negotiations are continuing at all the hospitals, though differences remain on critical issues such as healthcare, retiree health benefits, and safe RN staffing. Establishing strong retirement protections is a significant retention and recruitment issue, say Sutter RNs. They note that other hospitals, in a very competitive market during a nursing shortage, offer much better retirement benefits, such as Kaiser Permanente which is scheduled to open a new hospital in Antioch in November, and is already drawing applications from many Delta RNs.

"What a tragedy for residents of this community who could lose their most experienced, professional RNs due to the intransigence of Sutter," said Castillo.

Sutter Management's Last-Best-Final includes:
-- Substandard Sutter Select self insured healthcare plan with limited access, and higher co-payments and premiums.
-- Rejection of CNA RN safe staffing proposals, including no real remedy for meal and break relief problems which is especially of concern for RNs working 12 hour shifts
-- Unsafe "floating" policies, where RNs will have to work in units in which they are not competent
-- Substandard retiree healthcare far below Sutter bay area standards

The 10 Sutter hospitals currently in bargaining are: Sutter Solano Medical Center, Vallejo; St. Luke's Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco; Alta Bates Medical Center, Berkeley; Summit Medical Center, Oakland; Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa; Eden Medical Center, Castro Valley; San Leandro Hospital; Mills Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and San Mateo; Marin General, Greenbrae; and Novato Community Hospital.

Representing some 75,000 RNs in 50 states, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee is the largest and fastest-growing association of direct-care RNs in the nation.

California Nurses Association