Photograph by George Sakkestad
Camino Healthcare nurse Millie Cross gives a thumbs-up to a passenger in a passing car that honked in support of a picket staged by the nurses' union.
By KATHERINE PETERSEN
Nurses who work for Camino Healthcare have been working at El Camino Hospital and its affiliated offices without a contract since May 22.
The negotiating team for Professional Resources for Nurses, an independent union, has reached an impasse in its attempts to agree on a contract. Camino Healthcare put its final contract offer on the table July 11. The union has recommended that its membership reject the offer when it votes sometime after July 22.
"We are evaluating all of our legal options and discussing our next steps," said Patricia Briggs, PRN's president and chief negotiator.
PRN began an informational picket July 11 at 4 p.m. Nurses are picketing at the former Sunnyvale Medical Clinic, and at the hospital and former Shoreline Medical Group, both in Mountain View.
During negotiations with Camino Healthcare, the nurses offered to waive any wage increases for the next two years and proposed substantial cuts in other compensations including overtime, holidays and working evening and night shifts, said Patricia Briggs, PRN's president and chief negotiator.
"Management rejected our proposal," said Briggs, who works in the operating room at El Camino Hospital.
Jerry Shefren, Camino Health-care's chief medical officer and director of managed care, said Camino Healthcare did not accept the union's offer because the overall compensation far exceeded the market rate.
"We want to pay nurses at or slightly above the market rate. The union has not yet made a proposal in line with that. We would be happy to entertain a market-rate proposal," Shefren said.
Shefren said Camino Healthcare has been generous with nurses' salaries by not cutting their salaries to reduce costs as other hospitals have done.
"I think we'll be able to work it out. The nurses understand the needs of the organization in order to move forward, and when the time comes I expect they will stay with the hospital. I think ultimately they are team players and will continue to work with us," Shefren said.
Shefren said the nurses' base salary ranges from $60,000 to $70,000, with an additional $6,000 to $20,000 for weekend, night and overtime work. He added that the additional money earned in overtime and other compensation is the part that needs to come down to the market rate.
Yet Briggs countered that the nurses are being asked to give up benefits they've gained over the past two decades because of "bad management." She added the money is not the nurses' only concern.
The nurses would be waiving their right to bargain on any issue not in the contract, such as nurse-to-patient ratio.
"If management has such extensive unilateral power, the nurses will have no control over when they work, where they work and how they care for patients," she said.
The negotiating team for PRN, which represents about 650 nurses, wants the hospital and clinics to survive without making concessions that will adversely affect the quality of patient care.
Briggs said Camino Healthcare recently lost seven nurses in the operating room due to a voluntary retirement plan for which 40 were eligible. Briggs said that about 90 of the 650 nurses in the union work full time.
"The nurses are extraordinarily stressed both physically and emotionally. We are concerned about mistakes and personal injury from fatigue and overwork," he said.
Shefren said that what Camino Healthcare is offering is "very generous" and "collaborative."
Zimmerman said the hospital has hired an agency to supply experienced nurses, and additional staff members are being trained on clinical care in case PRN votes to strike.
"We would continue to provide quality services to our community," she said.
Dr. Susan Hansen, a neurologist who works at El Camino Hospital, said the nurses are being used as a "scapegoat" for a system that isn't working for other reasons.
"The nurses have gone far above and beyond the call of duty in providing care at the hospital. They're being asked to give up their union," she said.
She said cutting nurses' wages may have short-term benefits, but it is not the best way to reduce costs.
"If there could be an open dialogue about the budget, the medical community could figure out the ways to reduce costs rather than putting it all on the nursing staff," she said.
Hansen said that many times there aren't enough nurses staffing each floor to care for patients.
"Sensible decisions need to be made about staffing that allow for good care that don't require such drastic measures directed at the nurses," she said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, July 17, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.