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Business & Tech

Nurses Scold Sutter at Mid-Day Rally

Scores turn out for one-day work stoppage, mirroring actions throughout Northern California.

Nurses from hospitals in Burlingame, South San Francisco, San Mateo, and Redwood City joined more than 23,000 throughout Northern California today in a one-day strike to protest benefit cuts and what they describe as blows to their role as patient advocates.

A raucous mid-day rally at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame drew scores of staffers from Sutter Health and Kaiser hospitals.

“I just can’t tell you how rewarding it is to see all your sunny faces,” said Mills-Peninsula I.C.U. nurse Janelle Morgan. “All we can say at the bargaining table, you guys are saying right now.”

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The work stoppage is believed to be the largest by nurses in the nation's history.

The protests stemmed from stalled negotiations between the Sacramento-based Sutter Health and its registered nurses, represented by the California Nurses Association (CNA). Kaiser nurses joined the strike.

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The latest Sutter Health proposal decimates benefits and inflates health care premiums. But the nurses reserved their most vigorous protests for management efforts to cut their influence on behalf patients and to punish nurses for failing to meet budget-based goals.

They say Sutter has already cut acute care rehabilitation, dialysis and pediatric care, and plans to shutter the gastrointestinal lab at Mills-Peninsula.

“We’re the only ones that stand between the patient and the conglomerate,” said veteran nurse Sharon Tobin. “This is our calling in life. We need to be there when they need us.”

Sutter responded to the strike action with a five-day lockout,  cancelling a bargaining session scheduled for Monday.

Yesterday, a Sutter spokeswoman said the hospitals pay competitive wages, but have an obligation to keep health care costs down for patients.

Hospital officials “regret the union’s decision to take this action as negotiations are still under way," according to a press statement issued today.

But elected officials weighed in on the side of the nurses. Assemblyman Jerry Hill and state Sen.  Leland Yee sent emissaries to the rally.

“Business and health care really don’t belong in the same sentence,” said Richard Holober, San Mateo County Community College Board president. “So Sutter has to figure out what it’s all about.”


According to 2009 tax records, Sutter earned $3.7 billion in profits over the past six years, paying its CEO nearly $4 million and its regional executive nearly $3 million.

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