Nurses to Hold Major Unity Rally Sunday As Successful Sutter Strike Concludes

A strike by 4,000 registered nurses at ten Bay Area Sutter facilities will conclude this week, with a major unity rally Sunday at noon at California Pacific Medical Center-Cal Campus featuring elected officials, community leaders, and nurses from across the Bay Area celebrating the success of the walkout, which is due to end Monday at 7 a.m.

The ten-day RN strike has been one of the longest and most spirited in recent Bay Area history.  Sutter has engaged in a series of retaliatory measures against nurses, including threats of loss of employment and health benefits, that led the California Nurses Association on Thursday to file a series of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board.  The result of such harassment has been to unify the RNs, leading to 95 percent participation in the strike.

The dispute at the heart of the strike is patient care, with nurses protesting Sutter’s systemic endangerment of patients by understaffing.  The nurses are also striking for fair healthcare and retirement benefits, and to stop Sutter from “medical redlining,” the closing of community hospitals in medically-underserved areas.

What:  Unity Rally by RNs from Across Bay Area, featuring Sen. Leland Yee, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma and Supervisors Tom Ammiano, Chris Daly, and Jake McGoldrick

When: Sunday, March 30, 12 Noon

Where: CPMC-California Campus, 3700 California Street

“Nurses are on strike in order to get Sutter to respond to the very real patient care problems throughout their chain,” said Jan Rodolfo, an RN at Summit Medical Center.  “Their response has been to target nurses for retaliation and to embark on a campaign of intimidation.  Sutter needs to know that nurses cannot be intimidated, and will not let our patients be endangered.”

Thousands of RNs have struck Sutter facilities twice already, though this is the first ten-day strike.  The key reason for the walkouts is the pattern of patient safety risks caused by Sutter’s refusal to schedule RNs to care for patients when nurses are on legally-mandated meal or rest breaks.  Such scheduling gaps leave patients unattended and at risk for sentinel events.  Nurses are also concerned over Sutter’s practice of medical redlining by closing hospitals in medically underserved areas (St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco and San Leandro Hospital) and their refusal to agree to fair settlements on issues of healthcare and retiree healthcare and pensions. 

Sutter Hospitals Affected

Sutter hospitals affected are St. Luke’s Hospital and California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, San Leandro Hospital, Alta Bates-Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, Sutter Delta in Antioch, and Sutter Solano in Vallejo.