St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center Strike: 06 January 2002 - Day 42
<http://www.nysna.org/NEWS/current/stcath.htm>
How You Can Help:
* Financial Contributions
* Write a Letter
* Walk the Strike Line
Checks payable to ³NYSNA St. Catherine's Strike Fund² may be sent to:
NYSNA Economic & General Welfare Program
Attn: Anne Parrish or Marilyn Bauer
120 Wall Street, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10005
Write a Letter: Check web site for addresses.
E-mail your support to your brother and sister nurses at St. Catherine of Siena. Messages of support may be e-mailed to NYSNA (webeditor@nysna.org) for forwarding to St. Catherine's RNs.
Walk the Strike Line: Check web site for times & instructions.
Striking for Wage Equality
<http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/letters/ny-vpltr312529433dec31.story>
Kim Nowakowski, Newsday, Letters to the Editor (Long Island Edition), December 31, 2001
I am glad Newsday covered the strike at St. Catherine of Sienna Medical Center ["Hospital: Strike Hasn't Hobbled Us," Dec. 22]. It is so easy to forget a strike when it is out of view.
The article reminded me once again of the systemic acceptance of wage discrimination against women (and minorities). Think about our working and living in a "supply and demand" world. Why is it that these nurses are in such high demand, yet they beg for wages and benefits? I think it is likely because they are in a profession dominated by women. Too many employers are still thinking of women as working for pin money. Yet studies have found that one-third of working women are single heads of households and half or more are contributing equally to their families' survival.
When will employers accept this? When will supply and demand truly set the wages and not gender (or even race)? It is time for Albany to pass and sign into law wage equality bills that really work. This is, after all, a human rights issue and, more importantly, a family issue. The governor's race is around the corner and so are thousands of voting women. (In fact the majority of the voting public is female.) It's time this issue was addressed.
If the hospital isn't "hobbled" by the high cost of replacement nurses, then why not treat the striking nurses right in the first place?
Copyright İ 2001, Newsday, Inc.
Strike negotiations yield no results
Anna Demian, The Times of Smithtown, St. James & Nesconset, January 3, 2002
Two negotiation sessions, on December 19 and 26, have not led to any resolution in the nursesı strike at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown.
³There has been no progress,² said Mark Genovese, a representative for the New York State Nursesı Association (NYSNA). ³On December 19 it appeared we might make progress ... but then on December 26 [hospital] administration refused to talk.²
Hospital spokeswoman Katherine Heaviside pointed to the long discussion session on December 26 as proof that the hospital was not silent. ³They talked for seven hours,² said Heaviside. ³It was the federal mediator who ended the discussion.² Heaviside added that the hospital was looking forward to resolving the situation and to the nurses coming back to St. Catherineıs.
The nurses held a number of activities over the holidays including a candlelight march down Smithtownıs Main Street on New Yearıs Eve. ³Of course it has been slow over the holidays,² said Genovese. He said that after the holidays the nurses would plan their strategy for the new year.
The nurses, who began picketing on November 26, are calling for staffing guidelines to be included in their contract, for the elimination of mandatory overtime except in emergencies, for the guarantee that flextime will be available to nurses and for the hospital to allow nurses to switch to the health plan offered by NYSNA.
Hospital administration has said that maintaining proper staffing levels is their responsibility and that they must have the option to control things like flextime and mandatory overtime in order guarantee patient safety. In regard to the health plan they have said they do not have the money to fund the switch to the NYSNA plan.
The federal mediator for the strike has not scheduled another session although sources said one might be held the week of January 6.
During the strike St. Catherineıs is still offering its full range of services.
Striking Long Island Nurses Still Fighting After 40 Days
Hospital Management Delays Serious Talks
<http://www.nysna.org/NEWS/PRESS/pr2002/pr010402.htm>
05 January 2001 - Day 41
Smithtown, Jan. 4, 2002 Forty days into the nurses strike at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center on Long Island, hospital negotiators still refuse to meet with the nurses face-to-face.
³We canıt make progress if we canıt sit at the same table together,² said Michael Chacon, representative for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), collective-bargaining agent for the 475 registered nurses. The strike began on Nov. 26 over managementıs refusal to consider solutions to the hospitalıs serious staffing problems.
³At our negotiating session on Dec. 11 the first since the strike began, management walked out after 15 minutes, yelling false accusations at us,² Chacon said. ³At our two sessions since then, theyıve forced us to sit in a separate room, with absolutely no contact. Thatıs not the conduct of an administration that wants to settle a strike.²
To further add to the nursesı irritation, managementıs negotiators said at the Dec. 19 session that they would be willing to work all night at their next session to complete talks. But at that next session on Dec. 26, management again refused to negotiate. Now they are not even willing to schedule another session.
³Instead of trying to resolve the issues, St. Catherineıs administration is deliberately dragging out this strike in an attempt to break the nursesı spirit,² Chacon said. ³This is bad for patient care, itıs bad for hospital finances, and itıs not going to work.²
The nurses are seeking to re-establish an enforceable set of RN-to-patient staffing guidelines that would ensure each patientıs safety. Nurses had won such guidelines in 1999, when the facility was called St. Johnıs Episcopal Hospital. But when Catholic Health Services of Long Island assumed control of the facility in February 2000, it forced the nurses to give up the guidelines under threat of closing the hospital.
RN staffing has been so low that nurses are often required to work exhausting shifts of 16 straight hours because there are not enough nurses available to fill the holes in the schedule. Some orientees reported they were left with full responsibility for patients even though they hadnıt completed their training, while others said they were responsible for 12 or more patients at one time. Such conditions are a threat to patient care at the hospital, and were one of the factors in the hospital being cited by the State Health Department in June 1998 for numerous patient care problems.
Management has refused to discuss staffing until the nurses drop their request for a better health care plan. The nurses believe that better coverage which would include provisions for health care after retirement is crucial if the facility is to remain a competitive employer for qualified registered nurses.
The nursesı most recent contract expired May 15, 2001. Nurses at the facility were on strike once before, June 18 and 19 in 1987.
With more than 33,000 members, NYSNA is the leading organization for registered nurses in New York state and is one of the largest representatives of RNs for collective bargaining in the nation. A multi-purpose organization, NYSNA fosters high standards for nursing education and practice and works to advance the profession through legislative activity. For more information, call Mark Genovese at NYSNA: 518.782.9400, ext. 353.
Oregon Health & Science University Strike: 06 January 2002 - Day 21
<http://www.fairpay4nurses.org>
Checks payable to ³ONA Strike Fund² may be sent to:
Oregon Nurses Association
9600 SW Oak Street, Suite 550
Portland, OR 97223-6599
Attention: Strike Fund
Phone 503-293-0011
Fax 503-293-0013
Strike Hotline 503-916-4381
Check the web page for updated information and for more ways to help.
Opposite sides of the table
Hereıs what Bonnie Driggers and Kathleen Sheridan, two high-profile negotiators on opposite sides of the 11-day-old nursing strike at Oregon Health & Science University, have in common. Both have nursing degrees from OHSU, the same school over which they are now wrangling. Both are 49 and devoted to the nursing profession. Yet the two women find themselves at the center of an acrimonious, costly and potentially lengthy strike at their alma mater. Sheridan, who represents the striking nurses, says the university nurses make less than their counterparts in other Portland area hospitals. The union wants a 19 percent wage increase over two years, which, she says, at least would bring the nurses up to market wages. Driggers, who has been the universityıs primary spokeswoman, says OHSUıs offer of a 14 percent wage increase over 27 months is all it can afford and, with benefits, would represent market wages. Today, as nurses continue to picket outside OHSU Hospital, Driggers, Sheridan and their negotiating teams are meeting with state mediator Wendy Greenwald in an attempt to end the strike. ...
Mediation ends with no results
Associated Press, December 29, 2001
Portland, Ore. (AP) -- A mediation session ended without an agreement Friday between Oregon Health & Science University and its striking nurses. The strike entered its 13th day Saturday. Representatives of the Oregon Nurses Association, which represents 1,500 OHSU nurses, said they offered to decrease their wage proposal by 1 percent over two years of the contract. They also reduced their request for additional employer contributions to their health care. OHSU offered a profit-sharing plan, but made the same wage offer that nurses rejected when they went on strike Dec. 17. ...
Nurses union, OHSU break off mediation after 12-hour marathon
<http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/business/10096305296186151.xml>
Joe Rojas-Burke, The Oregonian, December 29, 2001
Striking nurses and the Oregon Health & Science University broke off talks Friday after bargaining for more than 12 hours. "We made a significant offer to them, one that we believed could solve this problem," said Kathleen Sheridan, negotiator for the Oregon Nurses Association, which represents 1,500 registered nurses at OHSU. "We got this ridiculous offer back." The mediation session broke off shortly before 10 p.m. A representative of the hospital could not be reached for comment. More than 1,300 registered nurses have been on strike at the state's busiest medical center since Dec. 17. The nurses say they are underpaid compared with counterparts elsewhere, which they say prevents OHSU from attracting enough registered nurses amid a nationwide nursing shortage. ...
Picketing curtailed after nurses hit by eggs
<http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/10098897151480473.xml>
Joe Rojas-Burke, The Oregonian, January 1, 2002
Striking nurses Monday said they would stop overnight picketing at Oregon Health & Science University after several union members were pelted with raw eggs in front of the medical center. No nurses were injured in the only violent incident since the registered nurses walked out Dec. 17. Late Sunday night, a hail of eggs fell all at once, nurses said, as they crossed the street in front of the emergency room entrance. At least four nurses were struck, some multiple times. None of the nurses saw who threw the eggs. Moments after the egging, a guard at the hospital's main entrance stepped out in time to see taillights -- but not the make or license plate -- of a car driving down the hill from the medical center. Nurses and security officers said the ambush likely came from an upper parking level. ...
OHSU, nurses will resume talks today
<http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/10101489442787134.xml>
Wendy Y. Lawton, The Oregonian, January 4, 2002
Striking nurses and administrators at Oregon Health & Science University are back at the bargaining table today in an effort to end the first nurses' strike in university history. The session with a state mediator is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. in the Portland offices of the Oregon Nurses Association. It marks the third time since the Dec. 17 walkout that the two sides will trade proposals over wages and benefits. Previous peace-making sessions bore little fruit. The first one broke up after less than two hours with no movement on either side. The other meeting, held last Friday, ran for more than 12 hours. Union negotiators representing 1,500 OHSU registered nurses arrived with a few concessions, including offering to decrease their wage proposal by about 1 percent and reducing their health care benefits request. OHSU countered with the same wage offer that nurses rejected when they walked off the job. But officials added a profit-sharing plan that would give annual bonuses to half- and full-time nurses if the hospital meets financial and customer satisfaction goals. ...
Nurses, OHSU Try Again to Settle Strike
<http://www.kpam.com>
Norm Gunning, KPAM, January 4, 2002
The mediator has called both sides in the Oregon Health and Science University nurses' strike back to the bargaining table this morning. They're to meet at 9:30 at the Oregon Nurses Association headquarters at 9600 SW Oak St. The two sides last met a week ago, when the union trimmed one percent off its demand for a pay raise, bringing that to 18 percent over two years. The hospital is holding to its offer of 14 percent over 27 months. Last week's session ended after 12 hours. It's not known publicly what each side will be ready to discuss today. OHSU spokesman Martin Munguia says the mediator contacted both sides Thursday. "We certainly want our nurses back. We couldn't say what's going to be at the table, so we'll have to wait until the session to see what each side brings." Nurses union spokesman Jim Berriault says progress in the talks is up to OHSU. "We are definitely hoping the OHSU management people will come to the table with an offer." About 1400 registered nurses have been on strike since December 17. The hospital says about 200 have crossed the picket line and returned to work, while the union says that number is more like 100. ...
Longshoremen Help out Striking Nurses
<http://www.kpam.com>
KPAM News Staff, January 4, 2002
Some striking nurses from Oregon Health and Science University could head down to the docks to pick up some extra money helping load and unload ships. The Longshoreman's union welcomes them. "After our men and women are hired down here, then any job that's left over the nurses would take and fill for the day," chief executive officer Scott Shinal of the Longshoreman's Local 8 says. The Longshoreman's union did the same for striking Kaiser nurses about five years ago, and found tasks for them including driving cars off ships and working in the grain elevators. The dock work is rigorous, but no longer requires a Longshoreman's burliness, Shinal notes. ...
Another round of nurses union, OHSU talks fail
<http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/10102353475302231.xml>
by Wendy Y. Lawton, The Oregonian, January 5, 2002
Nurses and administrators at Oregon Health & Science University ended a marathon bargaining session Friday night without a deal to end the 20-day strike. The session ended about 9:30 p.m. after 12 hours of closed-door negotiations. Representatives from both sides said little progress was made in the third round of passing proposals through a state mediator since the walkout began. Pocketbook issues continued to be the main stumbling block. "We spent a lot of time and didn't get much for it," said Kathleen Sheridan, a negotiator with the Oregon Nurses Association, the union representing at least 1,000 striking OHSU registered nurses. After making concessions during the last mediation session, Sheridan said the union stuck by its proposal of a 19 percent pay increase over 24 months. The hospital abandoned its former profit-sharing plan for nurses and instead offered a 21 percent pay raise over 39 months. ...
Talks to End Nurses' Strike Break Down Again
<http://www.kpam.com>
KPAM News Staff, January 5, 2002
In some ways, talks meant to bring an end to the nurses' strike at Oregon Health and Science University went as they did last week. Negotiators met for 12 hours but ended with little progress ironing out differences between the nurses' union and the hospital. OHSU revised its offer yesterday, with a proposal to give nurses a raise in the neighborhood of the one they're seeking, but that 20 percent would've been over the course of more than three years, rather than two years, as the two sides have been discussing. Oregon Nurses Association negotiator Kathleen Sheridan says that's too long a contract for the rank and file to sign. "Not only did (management) not improve the offer that they had, but the nurses are not going to sign a contract that's 39 months long. That's outrageous. We can't predict what's going to happen in a third year." However, the union reportedly was interested in putting it to a vote if it was the hospital's final offer, possibly ending the nearly three-week old walkout. The union would have done that on the condition that it tell the members that their negotiators disagreed with the proposal. But Sheridan says the hospital did not want the union to say anything about it, something she disagrees with. "We absolutely will not remain silent to our own members about such a terrible offer." ...
A Ray of Sunshine
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2001 01:00:16 +0200
From: Gila Svirsky <gsvirsky@netvision.net.il>
Friends,
Today was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak Middle East.
At 9:30 a.m., the organizers were still discussing whether the march should be held single file or two-by-two, as the police refused to grant us a permit to walk in the streets, wanting to contain us on the broad sidewalk. By 10:30 a.m., we saw there would be no hope of containing the vast crowd that had showed up.
An amazing 5,000 people, most dressed in black, turned up for today's events, beginning with the March of Mourning for all the victims -- Palestinian and Israeli -- of the Occupation. Responding to the call of the Coalition of Women for a Just Peace, people from all over the world found their way to the vigil plaza today. When the signal came to begin, we were all mixed up with each other -- Israeli, Palestinian, European, American -- and began a slow, solemn walk, in silence (mostly), with only a funereal cadence sounded by two women drummers at the center of this long procession. Although the extreme right wing staged a counterdemonstration at the beginning of our route, their small number (about 30) and angry shouts only served to dramatize the power of our own dignified presence.
We led with a huge banner, "The Occupation is Killing Us All", as well as hundreds of black hands with white lettering "Stop the Occupation", and scores of signs calling for peace, a state of Palestine beside the state of Israel, and sharing this beautiful city of Jerusalem, loved so long b so many. It was an unseasonably warm and balmy winter morning, and we were suddenly feeling hopeful and powerful marching together this way. Although the police were trying to keep us all walking on the sidewalk, soon we burst our seams and spread out into the road, blocking traffic along the route. And Ezra, long-time supporter of Women in Black in Jerusalem, walked among us, handing out a thousand red roses to Women in Black until the roses ran out, though the women did not.
We made our way slowly toward the broad, new plaza just outside historic Jaffa Gate, one of the main entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem. By the time everyone arrived, we had filled up the plaza completely, with spillover inside the gate and along the roads leading up to it. Past the stage, participants could see as backdrop the beautiful Citadel, rising from the walls of the Old City, with the Valley of Gethsemane spread out beyond in a breathtaking view.
The entire program was moderated in Hebrew and Arabic by Dalit Baum and Camilia Bader-Araf, co-MCs. They acknowledged the Knesset members who had joined us for the events -- Muhammed Barake, Naomi Chazan, Zehava Galon, Tamar Gozansky, Anat Maor, Issam Makhoul, and Mossi Raz -- as well as the delegations from Belgium, Canada, England, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the US, Marcia Freedman, former Israeli MK and long-standing Woman in Black, read the list of 118 locations around the world where solidarity events were planned for the same day (from Adelaide to Zaragoza -- see our website for the full list).
Speeches opened with Shulamit Aloni, first lady of human rights in Israel and former government minister, comparing our struggle to end the occupation with the struggles led by Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, reminding us that although the task is arduous, it will inevitably be crowned with success. She was followed by other powerful speeches -- Nurit Peled Elhanan, winner of the Sakharov Peace Prize, awarded by the European Parliament, and mother of Smadar, 13 years old when she was killed by a terrorist bomb in Jerusalem; Zahira Kamal, courageous Palestinian activist for peace as well as the rights of women and workers, who found a way to outwit the closure in order to reach Jerusalem and address this rally; Luisa Morgantini, irrepressible Italian member of the European Parliament and devoted supporter of the women's peace movement in the Middle East; Khulood Badawi, chair of the Association of Arab Students in Israel; and Vera Lichtenfels, a 17-year old Portuguese peace activist, representing youth all over the world who are working for peace.
These speeches were eloquent and inspiring, but I myself was especially moved by the ceremony of torch lighting by 13 Israeli organizations who have shown extraordinary commitment to activism for peace and human rights. Each representative lit a torch about one aspect related to their work -- the killed, the wounded, the homes demolished, the trees uprooted, the children whose lives were fractured, as well as the efforts of those who refuse to give in to the despair, but keep on struggling to transform this nightmare into a vision of peace and partnership (see below for the names and descriptions of these organizations).
These were words that one simply doesn't hear elsewhere, so publicly, by Israelis and Palestinians together. And then we held a concert rarely heard in the Middle East -- a "peace happening" of Palestinian and Israeli performers. It opened with the Elisheva Trio -- 3 talented black Jewish women from Dimona, singing peace songs in soul and rock arrangements. There were readings of poetry and plays, a performance piece, and an amazing duo of young Palestinian rappers from Lydda/Lod doing Arabic and Hebrew political lyrics. Ending it all was a hopeful reprise by the Elisheva Trio, with many in the crowd holding hands, swaying, and singing together.
When the concert was over, few wanted to leave and let go of the feeling that peace is really possible. Fortunately, we didn't really have to, because Peace Now was holding its own optimistic rally just inside Jaffa Gate, with Palestinians and Israelis signing a Peace Declaration and releasing doves into the sky over the city. Palestinians and Israelis wandered in and out the streets of the Old City trying to hold tight to the beautiful warm thaw in the air, within this long winter of violence and tragedy.
This evening, I watched Israeli TV to see if anything was reported about the hope for peace that had swept through Jerusalem today. I saw nothing about either the Coalition of Women for Peace or the Peace Now events, though I did hear that the Coalition action made the radio news several times today. We are used to this by now, and it brought to mind the words of Shulamit Aloni earlier today: "Even though Israelıs 'patriotic' media seek to ignore you, there is no doubt that your voice will be heard and that a great many others will join your cause. You will break through the silence because yours is a vision of freedom, justice, and peace."
May it come to pass. Today I feel more hopeful than I have for a long, long while.
Thank you to everyone all over the world who joined us in solidarity today, whether in vigils, through contributions, or in your hearts.
Shalom, salaam,
Gila Svirsky
Jerusalem
PS: One picture is already up at our website: <http://www.coalitionofwomen4peace.org>.