SAN DIEGO – Last week, 5,700 nurses who work for Sharp Healthcare in the San Diego area, along with health care professionals from Sharp Chula Vista, held a three-day strike to make a strong statement.
Fed up with Sharp management’s refusal to deliver a contract that protects patient care, the workers struck over the Thanksgiving holiday. Most of the workers are members of the Sharp Professional Nurses Network (SPNN), an affiliate of United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), which in turn is part of AFSCME.
After 20 negotiating sessions, the front-line Sharp health care professionals said that Sharp’s final contract proposals will lead to under-valued employees, insufficient benefits for workers living in the San Diego area, more under-staffing and a two-tier wage scheme.
Along with the thousands of Sharp nurses, 127 other health care professionals, including pharmacists, registered dieticians, occupational therapists, social workers and others stood in solidarity to demand more at three different strike locations.
UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine Morales, RN, an AFSCME vice president, said, “Sharp may have forgotten its mission, but we sure haven't. We are showing a truth that Sharp cannot ignore, when nurses and health care professionals rise, the entire county feels it."
The health care professionals are also fighting back against Sharp’s illegal removal of workers’ retiree medical benefits, as well as for a real voice in the care that they provide.
The workers will carry the strike’s momentum when they meet with management again later this month.
Sharp’s nurses and other health care professionals have taken action before to call attention to management’s flawed contract proposals at an Oct. 15 rally and informational picket in San Diego.
Key sticking points are management’s:
- Wage proposals in which some registered nurses won’t receive raises in some years;
- Proposal to eliminate retiree medical benefits;
- Refusal to grant adequate sick leave, a huge issue that puts RNs and patients at risk.