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ENCINITAS ---- Nurses at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas will determine this week if the powerful California Nurses Association stays or goes.

The so-called decertification vote on Wednesday and Thursday could mark a turnaround from December 2003, when Scripps nurses voted 135 to 78 to join the statewide union.

Over the course of 30 bargaining sessions since then, the union has failed to secure a contract, something union negotiators blame on unyielding management.

The union, representing 58,000 nurses at 165 facilities, has demanded that all Scripps Encinitas nurses become dues-paying members. The union wants salaries based on seniority rather than merit pay. Negotiators are also demanding the establishment of a patient-care committee composed of bedside nurses.

"They gave us their best and final offer, and it's not competitive with what other hospitals are getting," said Mike Pigott, a 20-year nurse at Scripps Encinitas who works in the intensive care unit. Pigott is a member of the union's negotiating team and said he thinks decertification will fail.

The hospital's administration has refused the union's demands. Nurses are in short supply and can negotiate effectively without a third party; merit pay recognizes credit where it is due; and a professional committee already exist at the hospital, administrators say.

"If the (union) stays, we're back to where we were before the vote," said Tracee Gamboa, a veteran nurse who favors ousting the union. "We're back to impasse."

Management has stood behind its final offer, made in February 2005.

Since then, a rift has developed between pro- and anti-union employees. On the floors of the 140-bed hospital, some staffers display their allegiances with buttons pinned to their smocks.

The private, nonprofit Encinitas hospital is one of five in San Diego County run by the Scripps Health system.

Since 2003, the union has claimed high rates of turnover among nurses at Scripps Encinitas, claims that administrators dismiss as unfounded.

Disputed turnover rates have left questions as to the true level of support for the union. Results of this week's vote should provide a definitive answer.

Regardless of which way the vote plays out, nurses and administrators offered no solid answer as to how to end the enmity.

In recent months, the union has taken its ire to the community.

It has staged publicized, one-day strikes in April and May and at least two other demonstrations, including one last week. The boisterous vigils drew pro-union nurses, dozens of supporters and news cameras to the hospital's entrance on busy Santa Fe Drive.

In a less overt way, anti-union nurses have banded with their supporters.

Earlier this month, union opponents rallied largely out of public view on a ball field on the hospital campus.

Last Thursday, the hospital offered pizza to employees at conferences filled with speeches urging votes to decertify the union. Those meetings were off-limits to the public.

Both sides to observe vote

On Wednesday and Thursday, both sides will be entitled to monitor the election, said James Small, assistant regional director for the National Labor Relation Board.

The federal agency investigates and prosecutes unfair labor practices and conducts elections on behalf of private companies.

An official from the labor board will provide ballots, a ballot box and voting booths, and will tally ballots at the hospital when voting ends at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Small said.

He said approximately 240 registered nurses will be eligible to vote. Decertification requires 50 percent of the vote to pass; maintaining the union requires 50 percent support plus one additional vote.

"I feel confident we will win and hope this sends a message to the hospital to come back to the table and listen to the nurses," Pigott said.

He said the movement in fall 2003 to gather signatures in support of unionization lasted two months, while the campaign to gather fewer signatures needed for the decertification election took much longer.

Scripps Encinitas nurse Russell Fagnant said Friday that he has spent one year collecting signatures and organizing the decertification drive. He submitted paperwork to the labor board June 9.

"I do not feel that we should be required to pay union dues or that we should be required to join the union," Fagnant said, "especially if we don't want their representation."

How the vote will turn out is anyone's guess, he said Friday.

"As it stands right now," Fagnant said, "it's very, very divided."

Making amends

Regardless of the election's outcome, both sides must continue to work with each another.

Pigott downplayed any hard feelings that may have developed.

"My job is to care for patients," Pigott said. "That takes precedence over any other outside activity going on. I don't think there's a lot of animosity, like, 'I hate you because of which side you support.' "

On at least one issue, the contesting factions seemed to agree: that a common goal of patient care should override philosophical differences about the union.

"It's going to take a tremendous devotion to patient care and not losing sight of the fact that that is our ultimate goal," Fagnant said. "It is incumbent upon us to put our feelings aside and leave that at the door when we come in."

The hospital's chief executive, Carl Etter, said Friday that relations among employees have weighed heavily on him.

"I see a lot of passion on both sides," Etter said. "All we have to do is corral the passion and steer it in the right direction ---- patient care. If we do that, it doesn't matter where we fall under the union situation."

Fagnant seemed less optimistic about mending ill feelings.

"The cold hard reality of this," he said, "is once the trigger has been pulled, you can never retrieve the bullet."

Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 943-2312 or akaye@nctimes.com.