The Minnesota Nurses Association and the California Nurses Association separately issued notices that they will hold one-day strikes on June 10 unless contract negotiations are resolved--collectively putting some 25,000 nurses on strike notice, reports the Associated Press (AP) in a Los Angeles Times article.
Nurses in California are concerned about staffing levels impacting patient safety at five University of California medical centers (San Diego, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento) and four other facilities: Citrus Valley Medical Center in Covina, San Pedro Hospital, Marina del Rey Medical Center in Los Angeles and Olympia Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to a California Nurses Association press release. The Minnesota nurses are targeting pay and pension issues, as well as staffing, in contract negotiations involving 14 Minneapolis-area hospitals. The Minnesota nurses and hospitals have resumed talks after a three-week stalemate to try to avoid the strike, reports the Star Tribune.
In other labor news, Kaiser Permanente has crafted a tentative agreement with 96,000 workers, agreeing to give union members a 3 percent raise in each year of a two-year deal, reports the Sacramento Bee. Meanwhile, UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Mass., also has reached a tentative agreement with about 1,300 housekeepers and lab workers who were preparing to strike.
To learn more:
- read this AP story in the Los Angeles Times
- read this Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal article
- read this California Nurses Association press release
- read this Star Tribune article
- read this Sacramento Bee article
- read this AP article in the Boston Globe