4,000 workers walk out of San Francisco area hospitals

Hospital workers on a one-day strike join the picket line Thursday outside St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco

July 6, 2000
Web posted at: 10:37 p.m. EDT (0237 GMT)

By Greg Lefevre
CNN San Francisco Bureau Chief

SAN FRANCISCO -- The chanting and cheers made it unusually noisy outside 10 Northern California hospitals Thursday -- and mighty quiet inside.

Four thousand support workers had walked off in a one-day strike to demand a say in how many workers staff the floor.

"It's health care workers, the people that provide the care, wanting a voice with the accountants and the CEO's to determine on the staffing that's needed," said Sal Rosselli of Service Employees International Union.

MESSAGE BOARD Hospital Strike

Hospital staffing levels are set by managers in consultation with physicians, and sometimes nurses.

The workers on the picket lines were technicians, assistants, food workers and clerks. The hospitals insist that giving union members what they are asking for would allow them to write their own job tickets.

"The message that Local 250 is sending is that lifetime job guarantees are more important than the health and safety of the patients that they are supposed to be protecting today," said Bill Gleeson of the Sutter Health corporation, one of the two hospital companies hit by the strike.

Under pressure

The hospitals say they are under intense pressure from insurance companies, Medicare and managed care companies to hold or lower the line on costs.

The union says the hospitals have gone too far.

"Over the last several years of this contract, staffing has been cut to the bone and they're trying to cut it more," says Roselli. "Staffing decisions today are based on budgeting and bottom line only, not on acuity or need."

Jimmie Cato, a physical therapy aide, walked the picket line outside St. Mary's Hospital.

"With the understaffing, the patients are simply not served adequately," he said. "Certainly they don't get the treatment that they need. I mean baths are missed in the mornings. The nursing assistants who do all the patient care, give the bed baths, and pass all the trays, and these people are just all overwhelmed."

During the strike, emergency rooms remained staffed and were accepting patients, although non-critical cases were being encouraged to go elsewhere.

One of the facilities, Alta Bates Hospital, had seven women in active labor without complication. The women were attended by a total of 15 physicians and five neo-natal specialists, hospital spokeswoman Maggie Gerk said.

Gerk said patient care was normal. "We do have enough nurses caring for the patients," she said.

The union gave the hospitals ten days' notice of the strike. That allowed administrators to cancel or defer elective surgeries, refer patients to other hospitals and release other patients earlier.

"For the past week all elective surgery at Alta Bates and Summit has been canceled," said Dr. Barry Horn of Alta Bates Hospital. "Elective surgery does not mean that people don't have significant illness and need care. These are individuals who need care, it's they don't need acute care and are not in imminent danger of dying."

Thirty premature babies were moved out to hospitals up to an hour away.

"This is very unfortunate," said Dr. Horn. "The care will still continue to be very good but this is very traumatic for the families."

The strike comes after a month-long walkout by 1,700 nurses at two other hospitals in the region, Stanford Medical Center and the Lucille Salter Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto.

The union says it will ratchet up the pressure on the hospitals if the strike does not have the intended effect.

Catholic Healthcare West
Sutter Health
Service Employees International Union

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