Nurses rally against move to unionize

By: LAURA MITCHELL - Staff Writer | Wednesday, March 17, 2004 8:58 PM PST ∞

WILDOMAR ---- More than a dozen nurses rallied outside Inland Valley Medical Center on Wednesday morning to protest plans to bring a nurses union into the hospital.

Nurses at Inland Valley who want to unionize filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board in October. To form a union, a majority of nurses at a hospital must vote in favor of organizing. Inland Valley has 230 nurses, said Teresa Fleege, spokeswoman for Southwest Healthcare System. Inland Valley is part of the Southwest system.

"We don't want to pay $90 a month in union dues," said Inland Valley obstetrics nurse Barbara Mixon.

Nurses would have less access to hospital management if a union comes in, because the union acts as the go-between with the nurses and the administration, Mixon said.

Obstetrics nurse Laura Sanchez agreed, saying that whenever she has raised concerns about a problem, Southwest Chief Executive Officer Scott Crane listens and takes care of it.

"I don't want someone else coming in to be my voice," Sanchez said.

Mixon acknowledged there are some hot issues at the hospital that need attention, such as adequate staffing, overtime and pension benefits, but she said she does not think unionizing will fix the problems.

Longtime Inland Valley nurse Lisa Walker also said she thinks a union is not going to solve anything. There are problems that need to be resolved, but bringing in a union is not going to make it better, the 22-year employee said.

"If you need an example, just look at the grocery strike," Walker said.

After four months of lockout and picketing in Southern California, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union reached an agreement late last month with three grocery stores. In the end, the union representing 70,000 grocery workers settled for lower wages and health benefits for new employees.

The grocery workers spent four months picketing in the wind and rain and didn't get anything better than what the supermarkets offered in the beginning, Walker said.

Pro-union nurses say the grocery strike comparison doesn't work, though.

"The hospital is not going to be able to go out and replace us (during a strike). They can't hire enough workers right now," said Cindy Jadwin, an intensive care unit nurse at Inland Valley.

With training, anyone can fill a grocery job, but nurses have to have a college degree and specific education, Jadwin said, adding she worked at a Kroger grocery store in Texas before she became a nurse.

Inland Valley nurses want to unionize to provide better patient care by insisting on higher nurse-to-patient ratios, Jadwin said.

Another pro-union nurse, Lisa Rudberg, said she liked working at a unionized hospital in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., because the union advocated for better patient care and made the hospital accountable.

California Nurses Association union organizer JoEllen Chernow said the nurses association holds the hospital accountable because it forces the hospital to open its books, which allows the union to see exactly how much profit a hospital is making. The union also protects nurses who want to advocate for patients, Chernow said.

"The nurses can make recommendations and the hospital is legally bound to work with nurses to improve patient care," she said.

But voting for a union at Inland Valley may involve a vote that includes nurses at Rancho Springs Medical Center in Murrieta, who have not filed for the right to unionize. Inland Valley and Rancho Springs make up the Southwest Healthcare System. Both hospitals are under one license. The decision to have the two medical centers vote as one entity is up to the National Labor Relations Board.

Southwest officials have asked the National Labor Relations Board to be considered as one location, Fleege said. The board has not yet made a decision on the vote, she said.

Contact staff writer Laura Mitchell at (909) 676-4315, Ext. 2621, or lmitchell@californian.com.

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