Ca union nurses strike a children's hospital.

H

Horn6721

Hook'em
Gives new meaning to ' it is all about the children"
"A union representing 750 registered nurses at Children's Hospital Oakland began a five-day strike Thursday morning.

The hospital is bringing in temporary nurses and remaining open during the walkout, which began Thursday morning and is scheduled to end at 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Representatives of California Nurses Association-National Nurses United have tried to negotiate a new contract for nearly a year. Their previous agreement expired in July.

The major hurdle in the talks has been what nurses describe as "take-aways" in health benefits. In the past, the hospital paid the entire cost of premiums.

The latest hospital proposal would give nurses three options: a Kaiser Permanente plan, a high-deductible PPO, and a PPO plan that would require nurses to pay nearly $4,000 a year to help offset rising premiums.

The Kaiser plan would not require an employee contribution, but many nurses prefer a PPO plan so they can have a greater choice of doctors and continue to have their children cared for at Children's Hospital, Martha Kuhl, a registered nurse and member of the union negotiating team, said last week.

Hospital spokeswoman Cynthia Chiarappa said last week that the changes have been driven by skyrocketing premiums and the financial struggles of the 190-bed hospital, which lost $15 million in 2010 and $26 million in 2009."The Link


Notice one option would still have given the nurses free healthcare but it wasn't good enough.
They' rather endanger sick chilren's lives.
Not sure how any union cn defend this
 
I hate it when any dispute negatively affects children or any other group. However, why do you JUST blame the nurses? Is it because they are part of a union and to you, union = bad? Should we expect nurses and teachers (and any other union) to simply take less pay or reduced benefits without a fight? And if not, how would you have them fight for their benefits effectively?

Please note that I have done no research on this situation other than reading your article. I just think that you are way too quick to blame only one side of the equation, and you even implicitly suggest they should be happy with the offer they were given, even if it's less than they have now. Should we all just shut up and be happy with what our employer gives us, or should we be able to negotiate as well?

Edit: Please please please don't take this as me "sticking up for the unions". I am simply curious why you only put blame on the union when they are on only one side of the negotiations. It's a common theme to see right-leaning people blame unions and unions only, and I just don't understand that mentality.
 
the hospital offers it's employees insurance that the hospital itsself doesn't accept.

And you side with the hospital?
 
it's a bad situation. nobody likes to be given something and then have it taken away. unfortunately, such is life for employees in this country. the hospital is losing money, something has to be done. most people contribute to their healthcare plan. the unions at this hospital do not. california is a screwed up state, just about every service employee is unionized. the businesses did it to themselves. i do not understand employees fighting for benefits when they work for someone that is losing money. 20% of the state is unemployed.
 
johhnym Before you climbed on your high horse to snark at me did you READ the article?
here
"The major hurdle in the talks has been what nurses describe as "take-aways" in health benefits. In the past, the hospital paid the entire cost of premiums.

The latest hospital proposal would give nurses three options: a Kaiser Permanente plan, a high-deductible PPO, and a PPO plan that would require nurses to pay nearly $4,000 a year to help offset rising premiums. "

So they used to get their insurance FREE. Now as even You Johnny will acknowledge times have changed and it is not always possible to give things that used to be free
so they were offered 3 choices, one of which would have been entirely FREE.an HMO. FREE
and beyond that 2 PPO choices, one of which would have allowed them to , how was it Obama put it< oh yeah, if you like your doctors you can keep them
BUT the nurses would have had to pay $4,000 a year.

Now that you have few facts do you still think the nurses's grievances were horrible enough to walk out on sick children?


Will
? They could still use the Hospital and Docs it would just cost them 4k a year, $ 333.00 a month.
How much do you pay?
 
What was snarky? I was not advocating a position, merely trying to see this from your point of view. Exactly where did I climb on any high horse?

I did read the article, including the part you quoted. The nurses were given an option (the three-plan option) from the hospital and they decided not to take it. The hospital has the option of leaving the plan in place and decided not to take it. Both sides have made a decision here, not just the unions. I still don't understand why you decide to only hold the unions accountable. Are the workers always wrong and the employer always right? That isn't meant snarky at all, I just don't see how you come down on the side opposite the union in every single union discussion out there. That seems more partisan than rationally thinking about each situation.

general - I understand that many unions around the country and specifically in California have been given cherry deals that are often unaffordable. I just don't fault the union only for that - they are trying to fight for benefits and the employer is fighting just as hard to not continue the benefits. Why is it that the unions are the only ones ever painted as greedy when the employer is trying to do the exact same thing (get the most and give up the least). It's a two-way street, but the criticism is normally one-way. That's where the narrative loses me.

I don't support the unions all the time, nor do I support the employers all the time. The hospital is losing money obviously, but why should the nurses just be expected to take the hit? Why shouldn't they be able to argue that they should not take the hit?

In reply to:
Click to expand...
 
"The hospital is losing money obviously, but why should the nurses just be expected to take the hit?"

Ask anyone who pays for their insurance if getting offered FREE medical care is taking a hit. Hard to believe anyone would think that is a HIT.

Beyond that there were other options mad availalbe. Would you consider that negotiating in god faith?
The money ( pun intended) quote in all of this is
"The major hurdle in the talks has been what nurses describe as "take-aways" in health benefits. In the past, the hospital paid the entire cost of premiums."

So even though the hospital has been losing money, Millions each year and the nurses know it but their union would rather strike leaving the possibility of children dying than consider the 3 plans and how they could work with them

Not sure how anyone coul support these nurses in this case.
 
JohnnyM, the nurses can fight all they want, however if the hospital is trying to make the cuts in order to ensure they stay in business then doesn't it behoove the nurses union at some point to take less than they currently get? The problem is that Unions and management when times are good make these agreements, and the second times turn bad the companies get villified when they try and take them away or reduce them. If there is a contract in place you honor it and the second it comes up for renewal you do your best to change it for the better, and if you are the union it is a fine line between getting the best deal for your and your people and worrying that you could get a great deal but not have a job in a month when the organization goes belly up.

Also I do believe that Unions are easy targets because the average non-union person doesn't get benefits anywhere near what the unions get, and when they start fighting for something usually the downside like in this case is something more in line with the rest of the population. Paying $4,000 per year as the employee part for a good health plan is something I'd take in a hearbeat.
 
Why do you believe they are no longer useful? Do you believe companies will never again take advantage of their workforce? If so, why do you believe this.

Before you jump down my throat like 6721, please note I am ASKING QUESTIONS because I am curious for the answers. I am not coyly presenting my position.
 
johnnym
"You compare it to the deal they currently have"
If conditions were better I'dagree with you. But the hospital is losing millions so the hospital doesn't have the conditions they had when the last contract was signed..

And I have to totally diagree with you when you said
"To suggest that the nurses must care less about the children than the hospital administrators is pretty ignorant,"

hmmm let's consider each side, the nurses walked off the job , did they make sure the children would receive care? NO they just walked off and didn't look back.
Who made sure the children got the care they needed? The Hospital Administrators.

I don't know about states with Unions. Could this hospital fire all the striking nurses? Frankly I am surprised they are allowed to strike. What would have happened if the Hospital couldn't find substitute nurses to care for the sick children?
Who would be blmed if children died due to no nurses?

Honest the callousness of these nurses is astounding
 
6721 - The hospital administration runs the hospital, the nurses do not. If the nurses aren't there, the patients are the hospital's responsibility. It doesn't mean they care more, it's just their role. I think you are intentionally trying to poison the nurses' side and I think it's a great example of caustic rhetoric that causes each side to dig in their heels and refuse to compromise.

Here is a great article about public employee pensions and some needed changes. I agree with most (all? I can't remember honestly) of the changes that the author calls for.
The Link
 
let's see, maybe this is the ridiculous part ...

"Maybe Dr. Lubin was confused by his own generous compensation package of wages and benefits of $570,514 in 2009. We’ll have to wait until November to see how much more he received in 2010.
The hospital is telling the press it lost $26 million in 2009. CHO
actually made $6.9 million in 2009, according to the IRS 990 form. The $6.9 million net revenue occurred despite the $1.35 million in wages, benefits and severance paid to CEO Frank Tiedemann that year, the aforementioned $570,000 to Lubin, $611,000 to Alexander Lucas, $420,000 to Kathleen Gonzalez, $417,000 to Bradley Barber, and wages benefits and severance paid to James Sullivan ($487,000), Lawrence Mack ($397,000) and Mary Dean ($452,000), who have all since left."

BTW, I'm pretty sure the nurses didn't just walk out. These things are done with substantial notice. A union doesn't get together over beers and decide to walk out tomorrow. This has been going on for several months.

Seems like this is another example of the CEO and Board having a share the pain, share the gain philosophy with their workers. The workers share the pain, the execs share the gain.
 
That salary, for that size of a hospital is not outrageous. I'm not saying that CEO's of hospitals are justified that pay, I just think you are comparing apples to oranges. (medical care providers to administrators).
 
I appreciate that there are certain valuable skills that CEOs/Execs have that are in demand but the idea that executives are worth many multiples of their subordinates is preposterous. this particular case is really not that crazy but many other situations are. Execs are not 20, 30, 100 or 1000 times more valuable. They are just the guys with the access to the check books. And contrary to popular opinion, there are thousands of experienced folks waiting in the wings able to step in and take up the slack when Jamie Dimon, Jeff Imelt and the like step down. There is no shortage of skilled managers. After all, these guys have a cast of thousands that do all the real analysis for them.
 
"So even though the hospital has been losing money, Millions each year"

So that makes it ok for them to just take $3 Million a year from their nursing staff?
 
tejas
I guess you have never had to meet a payroll or make sure there is enough money to pay bills. Most people understand things have changed and there are hard choices everywhere

The nurses were offered FREE med careso there was no need for them to pay 4k a year. and another plan ( a PPO) with a high deductable they would be responsibile for and lastly a 4k charge to them to continue what they had.

They had choices.What can't happen is like so many other places all over the country. they can't continue to get the current plan Free.

So they could get it free, they could opt for a high deductable or they could pay $333 a month.
In todays climate what is unfair about those choices?

Did these nurses give the sick children in the hospital any choice in whether they would still get care from the striking nurses?
 
Striking is not the only way that a worker expresses dissatisfaction. They can quit. They can picket, without going on strike. Striking does two things-

1. It hurts the employer by disrupting commerce.
2. It reveals that any prior claims of the work being a "calling", or that the workers have a special commitment to their patients to be a lie.
 
tejas is a bureaucrat in the Texas Department of Insurance. He has not only never met payroll, he soaks his living off other people's taxes.
So is it any wonder he sympathizes with the nurses here?
 
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