Oakland

Alta Bates Berkeley, Oakland Nurses On Strike for 5 Days

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Hundreds of East Bay nurses walked off the job and onto the picket lines Monday morning in what is expected to be a five-day strike, the California Nurses Association says.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United announced Sunday that registered nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center (ABSMC) in Oakland and Berkeley have voted to hold a five-day strike from through 7 a.m. Friday.

The nurses union says this strike is in response to "persistent patient care issues" including a lack of a workplace violence prevention plan and high turnover rates.

Nurses at the 350 Hawthorne Ave. campus in Oakland, the 2450 Ashby Ave. campus in Berkeley, and the 2001 Dwight Way campus in Berkeley will participate, the union said.

As many as 1,800 East Bay nurses could strike starting Monday morning, the California Nurses Association says. Alyssa Goard reports.

"We have nurses leaving constantly, in my unit alone there’s usually three or four nurses leaving a pay period which is about every two weeks," said Mike Hill, an ICU nurse at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and the chief nurses union representative for the hospital.

"And it's not that they want to necessarily leave, it's just that they can no longer put up with the working environment," Hill continued, adding that many of the nurses who have left go on to work with other local health care providers.

Hill added that the staffing issues have led to employees taking double shifts day after day, not getting breaks, or not being able to take their benefits.

“When you don’t get your meals and your rest breaks on a 16-hour shift, you’re exhausted,” Hill said.

ABSMC is an affiliate of Sutter Health.

A Sutter Health spokesperson sent NBC Bay Area the following statement:

“By moving forward with a costly and disruptive strike at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, union leadership has made it clear they are willing to put politics above patients and the nurses they represent – despite the intervention of federal mediators and our willingness to bargain in good faith while under threat of a strike. We remain focused on providing safe, high-quality care to the patients and communities we’re honored to serve, and we are confident in our ability to manage this disruption. We are hopeful the nurse union shares our desire to reach an agreement and enable our nurses to turn their focus back to the patients the union has asked them to walk away from. We stand by our commitment to patient safety, and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center remains open and fully operational despite the union’s actions.”

The California Nurses Association says it represents1,800 nurses at Sutter Health's ABSMC campuses.

Union representatives said they are not sure exactly how many nurses will be out at the picket lines because nurses might join in at different days or times.

Picket lines started Monday morning at Hawthorne Avenue in Oakland and Ashby Avenue in Berkeley.

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