SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Starting early Monday morning, 1,800 nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley are preparing to strike for five days.
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The California Nurses Association, or National Nurses United, has been bargaining with Sutter Health since June of last year. But even with the help of a federal mediator, no agreement has been successfully reached.
According to the union, the strike concerns ongoing patient care issues, staff safety and unusually high turnover rates.
"It feels like the management perspective is pretty far removed from what is actually happening at the bedside," said Anne Gaebler, a nurse who has worked with sick newborns at Alta Bates for 41 years.
What’s most concerning, she said, is management's disregard for the need for safety for patients, staff and families.
"It's about what the hospital needs to do to implement safety measures," she said. "To keep the nurses safe and to keep the patients safe and to keep the families safe."
Since 2020, the hospital has been fined over $300,000 for 16 Cal/OSHA violations.
Sutter released a statement Sunday night saying that they had been negotiating in good faith, and despite bringing in federal mediators to resolve the issues, "union leadership is putting politics above patients."
The statement added that Sutter remains focused on providing safe, high-quality care and that Alta Bates will remain open and fully operational despite the strike.
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