UC Nurses Deliver
Thousand of Protest Cards
to UC President

By John Graham
From UCSF Weekly, April 27, 2000

Registered nurses of the University of California delivered thousands of signed protest cards to the office of UC President David Atkinson last Monday morning, April 24. Their message: "Stop the attack on nurses’ rights. Direct your negotiators to work with UC RNs to improve patient care and labor relations at UC health facilities."
  The accusations and demands stem from University negotiators refusal to reach a fair settlement for the former UCSF Stanford nurses who are returning to the UC system as a result of the failed merger. In many cases these employees have lost benefits, retirement packages and seniority. At the same time, there are negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement between the University and the UC-California Nurses Association (CNA) taking place. In this case as well, the University has proposed several takeaways which would undermine RNs’ rights on-the-job and their effectiveness as patient advocates. That agreement expires on April 30.
  "Stop the attack on nurses’ rights. Direct your negotiators to work with UC RNs to improve patient care and labor relations at UC health facilities."
The nurses’ protest cards to Atkinson continue: "Amid a critical nursing shortage throughout California, it is crucial that UC registered nurses have an increased ability to prevent erosions of quality patient care." CNA proposals for pay equity, they note, would "enable the University to recruit and retain excellent registered nurses."
  The cards, representing RNs from UC San Francisco and UC Davis medical centers, as well as the UC Student Health Center at Berkeley, illustrate concerns for the state of contract talks between the University and its more than 7,000 registered nurses and nurse practitioners who are represented by the CNA.
"President Atkinson has said he wants a new, improved relationship with UC nurses," says David Johnson, CNA’s UC division director. "Unfortunately, we’ve seen just the opposite approach in contract talks."
  "Go to the fourth floor of Moffit Hospital, it’s crammed with patients. The closing of Mt. Zion has affected us all. The operating rooms are understaffed. Doctors are fighting amongst themselves."
  Stephanie Isaacson, a nurse in the operating room and a CNA negotiator for the statewide bargaining team-as well as serving with the demerger bargaining team-knows first-hand the effects budget tightening has had at the hospital. "I’ve not seen anything like this in my 26-year career. You have patients sitting in waiting rooms for an entire day . . . Go to the fourth floor of Moffit Hospital, it’s crammed with patients. The closing of Mt. Zion has affected us all. The operating rooms are understaffed. Doctors are fighting amongst themselves." Isaacson observes, "Because of these conditions, nurses are not choosing to work at UC."
  With the bottom line dominating contemporary patient care, and an April 30 deadline looming for a new UC-CNA collective bargaining agreement, the future for health care workers and patients alike is still up in the air. Isaacson sums up the current climate, "You’d think they would be courting nurses in this kind of a situation, not turning them away."