Registered Nurses To Picket In Castro Valley Tuesday

CASTRO VALLEY, CA — You may see registered nurses picketing in Castro Valley on Tuesday.

Nurses employed by Sutter Health plan an informational picket at 15 California sites, including Castro Valley. Sutter Health operates Eden Medical Center, Sutter Urgent Care and Sutter Castro Valley Clinic.

Nurses claim that the health network is refusing to address health and safety concerns, the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United said in a press release on Sunday.

The pickets will take place from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Locations include Castro Valley, Vallejo, Santa Rosa, Crescent City, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Antioch, Auburn, Roseville, Lakeport, Burlingame, Novato, and Sacramento.

"We have been on the front lines before and during this pandemic," said Amy Erb, a critical care RN at California Pacific Medical Center of San Francisco. "Throughout this time, we have witnessed Sutter Health become profitable while they refuse to invest in the resources, we need in order for us to provide safe and effective care to our patients and community."

The nurse's association said Sutter has refused to discuss proposals on issues about staffing, workplace violence, and pandemic readiness.

"Sutter Health is not investing in us, the nurses, or the community they should be serving," said Renee Waters, RN in the trauma neuro intensive care unit at Sutter Roseville. "Instead, they are frequently using the word 'commitment' in their responses to us without actually agreeing to proposals that hold them accountable. Sutter failed us during the pandemic."

According to the press release, Sutter Health nurses have been in contract negotiations since June 2021. They are asking for provisions including: safe staffing that allows nurses to provide safe and therapeutic care; pandemic readiness protections; presumptive eligibility for workers' compensation that covers infectious diseases and protocols that ensure nurses have the resources needed to keep their patients and themselves safe; and workplace violence protections that include plans to mitigate and prevent violence within the hospitals and comply with the state's workplace violence prevention law.