Nurses File Complaint Over Lockout
OAKLAND (AP) -- The union representing thousands of California nurses has filed a complaint with federal labor officials against Sutter Health, alleging the hospital group illegally locked out nurses after a one-day strike last month.
The California Nurses Association filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday. It alleges Sutter Health violated federal labor law when it did not allow striking nurses to immediately return to work following a one-day walkout on Sept. 22.
The strike included thousands of nurses at 33 not-for-profit hospitals in Northern and Central California run by Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health, and the independent Children's Hospital Oakland.
Sutter officials said they had to sign a five-day contract with an Alabama-based contractor to supply replacement nurses, so the striking nurses would be locked out.
"Rather than negotiate a fair agreement with their RNs, Sutter chose instead to retaliate with an illegal lockout, and then mislead the public with fraudulent claims to try to justify it," CNA executive director RoseAnn DeMoro said in a statement.
Officials at Sutter Health said Wednesday that they had no specific comment because they had not seen the complaint, but the company released a statement.
"Our hospitals make staffing replacement plans based on the best interests of their patients and communities," said Bill Gleeson, vice president of communications for Sutter.
"In the event they receive union strike notices, our hospitals work to ensure continuity of quality care in part by contracting with firms to hire qualified registered nurses to fill in for those on strike," the statement said.
During the lockout that followed the one-day strike, a cancer patient at Alta Bates Medical in Oakland, a Sutter hospital, died when she was given a nutritional supplement intravenously meant to be administered through a feeding tube, the Oakland Tribune reported, quoting a nurse who was hired to fill in for the striking nurses.
Hospital officials have acknowledged that Judith Ming, 66, died from a medical error but have not described what happened pending an investigation into Ming's death.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
