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Hospital workers plan strike
While hospital workers gear up for their Thursday walk-out – the fourth since the spring – the Alta Bates/Summit Medical Center administration staffs up to replace the hundreds of employees expected to go on strike.
At the heart of the months-long contract dispute is a push by Service Employees International Union 250 workers, including vocational nurses, respiratory therapists, dietary personnel and maintenance staff, to have a say in patient care, which is directly related to the level of staffing.
The workers want to have “a real voice in determining how care is provided,” said SEIU 250 President Sal Rosselli. “These decisions used to be made by physicians. Now they’re made by accountants.”
Alta Bates spokesperson Carolyn Kemp argues that is not so. Patient care decisions are made by physicians and nurses, she said. Staffing “depends on patient needs.”
Further, Kemp said the offer now on the negotiating table gives workers a greater voice in decision making.
Rosselli countered that the offer is insufficient. The workers want a guarantee that when the hospital administration and employees do not agree on staffing levels, a neutral third party will arbitrate. Kaiser Permanente and Alemeda County Medical Center, among others, have incorporated this demand into their contracts, he said.
Kemp argues, however, that there is no proof that an outside arbitrator would be effective.
The hospital has hired staff to replace the absentees and there should be no interruption of service, Kemp said. However, the one-day strike is coming at a bad time.
“It’s the beginning of the flu season and the census is at its highest,” she said. “I don’t see how (the work stoppage) helps the patients.”
The one-day strike is to bring community and media attention to the workers’ demands, Rosselli said.
She said the union is adding a new twist Thursday, with a march at 2 p.m. from the UC Berkeley campus down Telegraph Avenue to Alta Bates Hospital just east of Telegraph at Ashby Avenue, with a rally at Sproul Plaza on the campus preceding the march.
