Relations between Watsonville Community Hospital nurses and hospital management have been ailing since January, when the two parties entered into contract negotiations. Things heated up in October, when a one-day walkout turned into a three-day lockout and strike.
Talks were slated to start back up Dec. 10, with a bargaining day that the hospital offered nurses shortly after the strike. But days away from the planned meeting, the situation needs life support.
On Dec. 3, according to hospital nurses, management cancelled the planned meeting, rescheduled it for Dec. 17 and withdrew the promise of a soon-to-come offer without explanation.
“Even if you invented a big lie, it would be courteous to have some reason why you blew somebody off,” says nurse Tim Thomas. “That’s like not even feigning being polite, which is basically what we’ve been dealing with since we started negotiating with them.”
A hospital spokeswoman did not return calls.
Community Health Systems, the Franklin, Tenn.-based company that owns Wasonville Community Hospital, has been less than accommodating since the start of the negotiations, Thomas says.
Instead of talking with the nurses, the Community Health Systems attorney cancelled “numerous” meetings, he says, and called in a federal mediator, a step normally taken after negotiations have reached an impasse. The hospital, however, did it early in the process.
The California Nurses Association members say they’ve made several proposals to address staffing concerns—the nurses’ top priority—while the hospital has refused them all and offered no counterproposals. Community Health Systems officials did offer a “supposal” (not quite an offer; more like a floated scenario) for a 1-percent pay raise and a seven-month contract back in April, Thomas says, but it has yet to offer anything reasonable.
“From a retrospective look at the last 10 months or so, when we started bargaining,” he says, “we went into it very hopeful that we’d be able to work out bargaining in a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable settlement. It’s clear the hospital never intended to work it out. They basically give the impression they don’t want to negotiate a reasonable contract.”
Community Health Systems owns or operates 126 hospitals in 29 states. It’s the largest publicly traded hospital company and its income continues to grow. In October, the company reported better-than-expected quarterly results: its third-quarter net income was $70.4 million, compared with $59.7 million for the same period in 2009. Similarly, its net operating revenues totaled $3.3 billion, a 5.4 percent increase over last year’s $3.1 billion.
Thomas says the nurses will still convene Dec. 10, but instead of bargaining with the hospital for increased staffing, they’ll plan their next move.
“Our sister union at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Pennsylvania is going to strike Dec. 23,” Thomas says, adding that it’s likely Watsonville nurses would “hold some sort of action in sympathy, which could be a strike or something else.”
