County Strike Hits Second Hospital as Impasse Continues

As hundreds of nurses, lab technicians and clerks walked out of another public hospital Friday, both sides in the weeklong rolling county strike spoke of the need to return to the bargaining table before the strife goes countywide Wednesday.

Neither side, however, took the steps required to resume negotiations.

County officials and leaders of the Service Employees International Union Local 660 have spoken informally on a daily basis since the strike began, but bargaining has been suspended since Sept. 29, the day before the union’s contract expired.

County negotiators say their policy is not to meet with a striking union; Local 660 says the county met with union representatives during their previous job action in 1991.

The union, 60% of whose members earn $32,000 or less a year, says negotiations will be productive only if the county improves its offer of a 9% raise over three years.

The county rejects that notion, saying the union’s demand for a 15.5% raise over the same period would jeopardize the county’s precarious financial stability. But county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen opened the possibility of compromise at his regular news conference Friday.

“We do not want to see a general strike on Wednesday and I do not believe they want to see a general strike,” he said. “We are talking and we will be as flexible as we can to make sure the strike does not occur.”

But Janssen said the union still needs to promise not to engage in its general strike next week if negotiations are to proceed.

“We are concerned about the precedent of negotiating while they are striking,” Janssen said, because other county unions in the future will not bother to negotiate until they strike themselves.

Union spokesman Mark Tarnowsky said Janssen’s concerns were misplaced, noting that the county negotiated during a similar rolling strike in 1991 and reached an agreement in time to head off a countywide strike.

“Negotiating about striking instead of negotiating about the contract is misdirected,” Tarnowsky said. Referring to the union’s suggestion earlier this week that negotiations resume, he added: “The ball is, to some degree, in their court.”

As the rhetorical face-off continued, workers picketed outside Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the South Bay, saying they were striking not simply for the greater raise Local 660 is seeking but also to highlight problems in patient care. Nurses particularly complained of having to care for too many patients at once.

Patients, some in wheelchairs, dragged themselves out of the understaffed hospital to join the picket line.

“These nurses--I’m in favor of them. It’s a very hard job, a very big job,” said Mastoori Waseem, 52, sitting on a bench outside with her catheter and IV in tow.

Harbor’s trauma center was closed and severe injury cases were routed to other hospitals. Elective surgeries were canceled.

Overall, the hospital was not disrupted as severely as Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center was Thursday, when it was the target of the daily rolling strike.

About 40% of Harbor’s workers stayed away during Friday’s first shift, county officials said. The union contested those numbers, but many patients were able to keep appointments at Harbor on Friday, unlike at King/Drew, where many more employees walked out.

Many on the picket line Friday clutched beepers in case they had to dash back into the hospital to take care of an emergency. Some had arranged to leave their units sufficiently staffed to keep patients safe.

Nurse Willene Gordon, on a midmorning break after three hours of marching beginning at 6 a.m., acknowledged that she was torn over the job action.

“We didn’t go to school to be on strike,” she said. “It’s not a good feeling to be out here, but if we’re not able to give patients the adequate time and the care they deserve then it’s useless anyway.”

The rolling job action will diminish significantly during the three-day Columbus Day weekend. Workers will picket at Venice Beach and strike the Beaches and Harbor Department today. Because the county’s lifeguards are represented by a different union, today’s walkout involves mostly maintenance workers.

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Strike Schedule

A series of one-day strikes throughout Los Angeles County began Monday. The following are the departments that will be affected and the days the walkouts are planned:

Today

* Beaches and harbors (workers who maintain beaches and restrooms)

Tuesday

* County-USC Medical Center

* Olive View Medical Center

* Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center

* High Desert Medical Center

* Department of Health Services

* Northeast cluster of county health centers

* Coroner’s office

Wednesday

Countywide strike