St. Louise, O'Connor Nurses Striking Over Contract

GILROY, CA -- Nurses disgruntled over their contract representation staged an overnight walkout Tuesday in front of two South Bay hospitals that were just taken over by Santa Clara County on March 1. The one-day strike carried over to the county Government Center.

Estimates of striking nurses range from 36 to 200 depending on which side has conducted a tally.

The nurses' beef centers around perceived "unfair labor practices," the California Nursing Association complaint reads. The 150,000-member union claims the local government forced its own representation onto the nurses when it bought St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and O’Connor Hospital in San Jose from the bankrupted Verity Health System.

A legal battle ensued between the county and the California Attorney General's Office over how the hospitals should be run. The county won in court, but now the nurses wanted to be represented by their statewide union have found themselves in a quagmire over who represents them in contract talks. The county has placed the nurses within its county Employees Management Association and Registered Nurses Professional Association.

The nurses claim they have more collective bargaining power under their former statewide union and filed a formal complaint with the California Public Employee Relations Board. The complaint also cites the county has been operating with bullying tactics and "illegally threatening them with termination and intimidating them by baselessly informing them that the strike is illegal," CNA wrote. They also contend O'Connor nurses have been "evicted" from their hospital and "forbidden" from discussing union matters, despite the ability to talk about other "non-work matters."

The county countered with a statement declaring its right to designate benefits and procedures under its operating policies and further contends it "has no legal authority to change which unions represent county employees." In addition, the county makes the case the employees were "at risk" of losing their jobs if the local government hadn't rushed in to take over the facilities -- which notably were in full operation on the strike day.

"Fortunately, the county was able to provide opportunities for new county employment to those individuals who lost their jobs as a result of the Verity bankruptcy. Employees working today at (O'Connor) and (St. Louise) are now public employees of the county and receive all the benefits conferred on public employees, including participation in the California Public Employment Retirement System and various other county benefits," the statement read.

"The county respects the right of its employees to select the organization of their choice for purposes of representation. The California Nurses Association does not currently represent any county employees, nor has it taken any of the steps necessary to become the lawful representative of any county employees," County Executive Jeffrey Smith said. "Instead, it is using an unlawful strike in its dispute with other unions that represent the county’s employees at O’Connor and Saint Louise hospitals, trying to force the county to ignore its obligations to those unions."

Smith contends the county took over the facilities to "expand access to healthcare for all county residents and to preserve the jobs of more than 1,600 employees."

A nurses plight or flight

But St. Louise Regional Hospital labor and delivery nurse Monica Ramos has a different version of the pledge.

Ramos told Patch that not only have some employees not been offered jobs, all had to reapply under a year-long provisional employment agreement in which case they can be fired afterward with no tenure. The ones who were offered jobs got their agreements within days of the takeover, she added.

County officials insist they lost tenure and benefits because their prior employer went bankrupt, and the bankruptcy court terminated their collective bargaining agreements with their prior employer.

"It's not just a union issue. It's an issue of dignity and respect. They took away our seniority and lowered our pay," she told Patch while on the picket line." It's a dynamic they've wanted to created since the onset -- that we can fight for the crumbs at the bottom."

Ramos declared she was bullied by hospital security upon posting a CNA bulletin in a break room and told to remove it. When she walked into neutral ground in the cafeteria, she was asked to leave by security guards. The police were called, but officers remained outside.

"The atmosphere here is hostile," she said. "Our hospital is profitable, and it's because of the nurses kept the hospital profitable all these years."