ROSEVILLE—Registered nurses at Sutter Roseville Medical Center held an informational picket today, Thursday, March 5, over ongoing concerns regarding staffing and patient care that RNs say hospital officials have refused to address.

Roseville is one of eight Sutter Northern California hospitals where RNs, represented by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, are in contentious contract talks currently with the corporate Sutter hospital chain.

On Tuesday night RNs at Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital in Auburn Tuesday night voted by 94 percent to authorize nurse negotiators to call a strike if necessary. RNs at Sutter Tracy and Mills-Peninsula Health Services, with facilities in Burlingame and San Mateo, are taking strike votes Friday. Roseville RNs voted last month to give their bargaining team strike authorization. No strike dates have been set.

Safe staffing is at the center of the dispute in Roseville. Nurses say patients are currently being admitted with no hospital beds available and subsequently housed in the emergency room limiting the ability of ER nurses to safely care for patients needing emergency care. A secondary effect is leaving other units short-staffed as specialized RNs must leave patient assignments to work in the ER.

In addition to other staffing issues—including combined positions in Labor and Delivery that nurses say puts mothers and babies at risk—RNs will be protesting management demands for more than 30 reductions in the RNs’ existing health coverage, including big increases in out of pocket costs for nurses, exceeding what county and school district employees covered by Sutter’s HMO pay to Sutter Health.

“We’re fighting for patient safety, we’re fighting against unsafe staffing,” says Jennifer Barker, an emergency room RN. “I’m inspired by the nurses who are willing to step up and take on the Sutter Health corporation in the name of safe patient care.”

In Auburn, the RNs are resisting the same unwarranted health plan cuts sought by Sutter corporate executives in Roseville that could drive up out-of-pocket costs for some Auburn RNs to as high as $10,000 per family. The nurses are also protesting short staffing, charging the hospital is failing to meet the minimum standards required by the state’s safe staffing ratio law, putting patients at risk.

“Sutter Auburn Faith nurses showed their solidarity today with a solid turnout and 94 percent yes vote to authorize a strike,” said Sutter Auburn Faith RN Sandy Ralston.

“This should serve as a very strong signal to the employer that nurses are not willing to accept the significant health care cost increases being proposed by Sutter. It also sends an unmistakable message about staffing safely by acuity and that we are united in our commitment to a fair and just contract. Sutter has no idea what we are capable of,” Ralson said.

In addition to Roseville, Auburn, Sutter Tracy, and Mills-Peninsula, CNA/NNU nurses are engaged in bargaining at California Pacific Medical Center-Pacific campus in San Francisco, Sutter Lakeside, Sutter Santa Cruz (a visiting nurses home health service), Sutter Santa Rosa, and Sutter Solano in Vallejo.

RNs have long viewed Sutter as a poster child for corporate medical care in seeking to elevate its enormous wealth over patient services and employee rights.

From 2011 to 2013, Sutter RNs held nine strikes at some dozen Northern California Sutter Hospitals. That fight ended only when Sutter agreed to withdraw demands for some 200 reductions in patient care, workplace protections, and nursing standards.