Informational Picket 7:30 – 10 am; Rally 8:45 am Thursday
Address Declining Patient Care Standards
 
Registered Nurses at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital (STCH) will hold an informational picket and rally on Thursday to protest management's continued unwillingness to take serious action at the bargaining table. Sutter Tracy RNs held a candlelight vigil two weeks ago to alert the public to conditions in the hospital and to unacceptable positions by management at the bargaining table. Management continues to thwart the bargaining progress and stifle RNs efforts to improve conditions at the hospital, nurses say.

Safe patient care has been a key focus in contract negotiations between Sutter management and the nurses who voted in March 2012 to affiliate with the California Nurses Association,the state’s largest organization of RNs. The issues that prompted the organizing persist today including: safe staffing levels at all times, having a voice in the delivery of safe patient care and competitive pay and health care benefits to assure the recruitment and retention of the best nurses at STCH.

“Being the only emergency room in the Tracy community, we need to be able to provide therapeutic and safe care to our patients," Said Dotty Nygard, RN, Emergency. "Over the years, staffing levels and resources have become more limited. Only a strong contract can give us the protection we need to stand up for our patients,” said Nygard.
 
What:       Nurses Protest Declining Patient Care Standards at Sutter Tracy Community Hospital
When:      Thursday Dec. 12, Informational Picket 7:30 am – 10 am; Rally 8:45 am
Where:     Sutter Tracy Community Hospital
                 1420 N. Tracy Blvd, Tracy, CA
 
“Nurses want management to know that the patients and RNs at STCH deserve better and our community deserves the best care provided by a dedicated and qualified staff,” said Candice Meservy, RN Surgery. “Sutter Tracy is experiencing a shortage of skilled RNs, and we need to address that in our contract by standards that support recruitment and retention,” said Meservy.

“The RNs at STCH voted overwhelmingly last year to unionize with the California Nurses Association because we felt that it was important to have a voice to advocate for our patients without fear of reprimand,” said Victoria Lat, RN Med Surg. “Now that we have CNA, management continues to try to override our voice at the bargaining table by not being responsive to what we need to deliver safe patient care,” said Lat.

The Sutter Tracy RNs are bargaining for patient protection provisions that already exist in CNA-represented hospitals throughout the state including the recently ratified agreement covering 12,000 RNs at major UC medical centers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento (UC Davis), San Diego, and Irvine, as well as UC student health centers in Berkeley, Merced, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz.   This is the third major settlement for CNA/NNU since August following agreements earlier this year with Sutter Health and Dignity Health hospitals protecting standards for over 27,000 California and Nevada RNs. Among the achievements of the various pacts – reversing concessionary spirals seen for far too many workers, protecting retirement security and achieving breakthrough patient care and other gains.