ENCINITAS —— A 24-hour strike by nurses calling for a union shop began boisterously Thursday, but managers of Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas said more than half of the nurses assigned to the morning shift had reported to work.

Temporary nurses will fill any vacancies created by the strike, and any nurse who missed a shift in order to strike on Thursday will be locked out of the workplace through Sunday, administrators said.

On Thursday morning, 30 of 56 staff nurses arrived for their assigned shifts, said Carl Etter, chief executive at Scripps Encinitas.

The strike has caused no diversions of ambulances or other interruptions of service at the 140-bed hospital, said Dr. Jim LaBelle, medical director of the emergency department.

On the picket line late Thursday morning, nearly 80 demonstrators chanted, hoisted signs and demanded a contract that more than a year of negotiations has failed to produce.

Joining the Scripps nurses were protestors who identified themselves as nurses from hospitals as far away as Riverside, and representatives from teacher, hotel worker and public employee unions.

One person on the picket line identified herself as Joan Wilson, a nurse in Scripps Encinitas' acute rehabilitation unit. She said she was saddened that the impasse had resulted in a strike.

"The most important thing," Wilson said, "is that patients get good care."

The California Nurses Association union claims to represent 250 registered nurses at the hospital on Santa Fe Drive. The hospital is one of five in the San Diego-based Scripps system.

In Encinitas, nurses voted to unionize in 2003 and since then have not agreed upon a contract.

Union negotiators say the management is unwilling to operate the hospital as a "closed shop," employing only union nurses. Other demands include replacing a merit-pay system with one based on experience, and the formation of a nurses' committee to advocate for patient care.

Demonstrators said care has faltered at a hospital that they said struggles to retain experienced nurses, and where new nurses and temps fill many of the wards.

"Basically, those people don't know the system," Wilson said.

As part of the demonstration, some of Wilson's colleagues read from what they said were patient-care reports, which laid out repeated allegations of improper staffing, failures to follow doctors' orders and the botched delivery of medications.

The assertions could not be verified, and a nurses representative would not release the reports to the North County Times.

"I can't tell whether any of that is fact or fiction," said LaBelle, the Scripps administrator.

He said he had received the reports as part of the nurses' "compendium of issues."

The hospital has a care-reporting system, LaBelle said, adding that he was angry that most of the alleged mistreatment had not been entered into that system.

"If they were really interested in patient safety, they would have taken advantage of that system," LaBelle said.

An operations committee, he added, addresses matters of patient care and is more effective than a nurses-only panel would be, because it includes viewpoints of all kinds of employees, from administrators to nurses to housekeepers.

Joining LaBelle in a conference call with the North County Times on Thursday was Etter, Barbara Mitchell, associate administrator and chief nurse executive, and spokesman Don Stanziano.

On any given day, 126 to 130 nurses report to work, Stanziano said.

For that reason, the hospital hired nearly 100 temporary nurses for four days to cover any vacancies.

Etter said he did not know exact figures, but estimated the temporary hires would cost several hundred thousand dollars.

A contract that the hospital struck with On Assignment, a Calabasas-based staffing firm, guarantees four days of employment to the temporary nurses, Etter said.

Diane Hirsch-Garcia, a negotiator with the nurses union, said that while the strike is scheduled for one day only, nurses will continue to pressure the administration until both sides agree on a contract.

That contract should reward nurses based on their experience, said Mike Pigott, a Scripps Encinitas nurse for 20 years.

"It doesn't make any sense when every other hospital in the county rewards nurses based on experience," Pigott said.

Administrators defended a merit-pay system that union members criticized as overly subjective.

"To get a raise for coming to work and breathing for 20 years does not (encourage) top-notch performance," LaBelle said.

A contract should require that all nurses at Scripps Encinitas belong to the union, negotiators say.

That would be inappropriate, said Mitchell, the chief nurse executive.

"I think most of us in Encinitas feel that nurses should have a choice as to what professional association they should belong to," Mitchell said. "It should not be a condition of employment to belong to any organization."

Demonstrators who lambasted the hospital administration also took jabs at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose policies are unfavorable to nurses, they said.

A California Nurses Association billboard mounted on a truck bed reinforced the point. The two-paneled sign showed one image of a woman wearing hospital scrubs and a stethoscope alongside another of Schwarzenegger. Wrapped around the images were these words: "She heals. He wheels & Deals. Dedicated to patient care … not corporate wealth."

Contacted in Sacramento, Margita Thompson, a Schwarzenegger representative, said Thursday she had seen the sign. She brushed off its message.

"The unions are focused on politics and the governor's focused on policy," Thompson said. "We have a nursing shortage, and the governor has announced (grants and initiatives) to directly address the problem by creating more opportunities to train nurses."

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