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Fola Afariogun, a nursing assistant/phlebotomist for 19 years at Alta Bates Medical Center, says he’s forced to work overtime, and he’s afraid that when he’s tired and drawing blood, he’ll make a mistake. 

Kathy Tyson, who works in housekeeping at Alta Bates, says she cleans 15 rooms every day and that her heavy workload caused a neck injury. 

The two hospital workers were among the dozens at Alta Bates’ two Berkeley sites who went out Thursday on a one-day strike, joining some 4,000 Bay Area hospital workers, calling for increased staffing, safety measures, retirement benefits and no mandatory overtime. 

These workers, led by Service Employees International Union Local 250, were joined by registered nurses from the California Nurses’ Association, who struck for the day in sympathy with co-workers. 

Strikers picketed at Sutter Health and Catholic Healthcare West hospitals in the east and west Bay, as well as Children’s Hospital in Oakland and Alameda Hospital. 

Alta Bates administrators took issue with the walk out, arguing that the one-day strike was called in haste, that the union called workers out before negotiators were allowed to do their jobs and that patients were grossly inconvenienced and put through unnecessary pain, due to the walkout. 

Carolyn Kemp, Alta Bates spokesperson, said the strike was called prematurely, before issues were put on the table. Workers went out because of “misguided leadership,” she said. 

Kemp stressed the pain and inconvenience the strike has caused patients. The normal patient load at the merged Summit and Alta Bates hospitals is 720, but on Thursday it was 293. 

“Over 400 elective surgeries were canceled,” Kemp said, underscoring the fact that surgeries may be “elective,” but that these patients may be in pain until they get their operations. 

And the surgeries were not only postponed for people who were to come to the hospital on Thursday – they also were delayed for those who would have had surgery earlier in the week and remained in the hospital on Thursday. 

“There’s no such thing as a one-day strike,” Kemp said, remarking that a hospital is not like an automobile factory, with a conveyor line that can be shut down for a day. 

Kemp argued that salary increases offered were comparable to the nurse’s raises – 4 percent the first two years and 3 percent the third year. 

“This isn’t about wages,” she said. “This is about giving jobs for life.” 

Afariogun, the phlebotomist who was walking a picket line at Alta Bates, agreed that for Alta Bates’ workers, the strike was, in part, about job security. 

With the merger between Summit Medical Center and Alta Bates, various units will close at one hospital and increase at another, he said. The workers want the hospital to guarantee that the workers will move with their jobs. 

Kemp argued, however, that the workers do not need to fear the loss of their jobs. 

“The merger will bring more jobs into the hospital,” she said, noting that Kaiser is now bringing its heart patients from San Francisco to Summit in Oakland. 

Among the numerous demands, Afariogun said safety was a primary issue. Among the tasks the nursing assistants perform is lifting the patients and turning them over. Afariogun is a slender 130-pound man, but at times, he is required to lift a 200-to-300-pound patient. 

Afariogun said there used to be people whose job it was to lift patients, but now the nursing assistants do it by themselves, or they have to go and find someone to help them. 

Mandatory overtime means that workers perform their tasks when they are tired, Afariogun said. 

“An employee puts in his eight hours, he should not be mandated to do overtime,” he said. 

Martha Kuhn has been a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital for 18 years. She was out on the picket line with the workers on strike. 

“Our colleagues in Local 250 – housekeepers and nurses aides – are very important, taking care of patients,” she said. “We want to respect their picket line.” 

But inside Children’s Hospital, spokesperson Debbie McCann argued that the hospital staff “got swept up in the strike.” The issues are not relevant at Children’s, where staffing has remained at a constant patient-staff ratio over 10 years, she said. Management and outside nursing staff had come into the hospital to beef up positions left vacant by the strikers. 

“There’s a possibility of putting patients at risk,” she said, blaming the strikers. 

Outside on the sidewalk, the nurse supporters said that if any child were truly at risk because of the strike, they would reassess the situation. 

Lining Martin Luther King Jr. Way, the Children’s Hospital strikers were greeted by honking motorists on the way to Highway 24. The chant was the same as over at Alta Bates and former Herrick hospitals: 

“What do you want?” 

“A contract.” 

“When do you want it?” 

“Now.”