Sharp Nurses Win One, Too
Nurses at Sharp HealthCare Hospitals in San Diego found themselves suffering from the same corporate health care woes as doctors in Tucson and took the same prescription: AFSCME.
As management at six Sharp HealthCare Hospitals increased staff workloads, replaced professional staff with "para-professionals" and kept salaries flat, the nurses organized and, in June, voted to form the Sharp Professional Nurses Network (SPNN), United Nurses Associations of California (UNAC), an affiliate of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (NUHHCE)/AFSCME Local 1199.
But that wasn't the end of the story. Management tried to stop the union by raising objections to the organizing vote.
In February, however, the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., handed the nurses a victory when it dismissed management's objections.
UNAC Pres. and AFSCME International Vice Pres. Kathy Sackman hailed the decision as "a great step forward not only for Sharp's registered nurses but for everyone in San Diego who is concerned about quality of care."
SPNN/UNAC is now the exclusive collective bargaining representative for 2,600 full-time and regular part-time registered nurses.
Immediately following the NLRB ruling, SPNN/UNAC representatives renewed efforts to negotiate with hospital management. Meantime, California's attorney general has withheld permission by Sharp Health- Care to sell its interest in the hospitals to Columbia/HCA, the nation's largest for-profit health care company.
Echoing the sentiments of physicians in Tucson, Sackman says health care professionals have to put their duty as healers above the corporate bottom line. "As registered nurses, we have a very critical role to play -- not only in delivering quality patient care, but as participants in shaping the policies that will allow us to deliver that care," she says. "When the Sharp nurses voted to form a union they did so to be part of the solution. Now that the NLRB has made its final ruling certifying the union, we will be able to do so."
