By KATHERINE PETERSEN
Nurses working without a contract at Camino Healthcare for the last two months voted overwhelmingly July 23 to reject the concept of management's latest proposal.
Moreover, the nurses' union has filed a complaint with the labor board claiming management hasn't bargained in good faith.
Of the 512 members in Professional Resource for Nurses, 84 percent voted against the proposal. The union represents 609 nurses, but not all are members of the union.
Although management disagrees, the union contends Camino Healthcare has not made its final offer, and therefore members voted only on the proposal's concept, not an actual contract.
"We don't feel like we're at an impasse in negotiations," said Patricia Briggs, the union's president and chief negotiator.
Dr. Jerry Shefren, Camino Healthcare's chief medical officer and director of managed care, said the company's latest offer is also its last.
"We will be making a determination in the near future as to how to proceed based on whatever decisions [the union] has made," he said.
Managment told the union's negotiating team that if it could not accept Camino Healthcare's management rights clause--which leaves decisions on scheduling and nurse-to-patient ratio up to management--there was no reason for further discussion, Briggs said.
Confusion arose in negotiations, Briggs said, because Camino Healthcare officials told the negotiating team one thing and the nurses another.
Management told the negotiating team the nurses would not accrue vacation time while taking their paid time off, but then told the nurses the opposite, Briggs said.
Meanwhile, on July 16, the union filed an unfair labor practice claim with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that Camino Healthcare did not bargain in good faith.
Shefren said the claim is unjustified.
"We went through good faith negotiations with them for over four months and could not agree on a number of key items, and they are well aware of that," he said. He cited compensations and the management rights clause as two examples.
Paul Eggert, regional attorney for the Oakland office of the NLRB, said the board will begin an investigation.
Camino Healthcare remains hopeful it will be able to reach an agreement with the nurses.
"We're confident that we did a careful assessment of the market rates for salary and [compensations]," 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, according to Shefren. The additional money earned in overtime and other compensation is the part that needs to come down to the market rate, he added.
Briggs countered that the average base salary of nurses working at El Camino Hospital is only $52,500, jumping up to $54,000 with compensations. Overtime can not be calculated into this number because it is not scheduled, Briggs said. Nurses who work at affiliated clinics make 23 percent less than those at the hospital, Briggs added.
Sixty percent of nurses at El Camino Hospital earn less than the average base wage of the seven or eight hospitals, including Stanford and San Jose medical centers, that management used for its benchmark figures, Briggs said.
"We have no idea where they're getting their figures," she said.
Pat Reardon, who works in the intensive care unit at El Camino Hospital, said while a strike should be avoided at all cost, she would find it difficult to work under conditions as laid out in Camino Healthcare's proposals.
"I consider it a very ruthless contract. I think it has a real negative impact on working conditions. I think it adversely affects patient care," she said. Nurses would no longer have any control over the ratio of nurses on the floor to patients needing care, she added.
Reardon feels that management equates patient care and nursing care delivery only with dollars and cents.
"I've been a nurse for 32 years, and I feel that with this,management we have stepped back 30 years. This contract would take away all of our power to practice nursing that we have been given. We would have no say in the number of nurses or the structure of the organization, so it has a positive outcome on care delivery," she said.
Reardon hopes this will be a "wake-up call" to the public that they have to start getting involved in health-care issues.
"By doing to the nurses what they're doing, [managment is] getting to the patients," she said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, July 31, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.