Locked-out health workers sue Sutter

Locked-out health workers sue Sutter

Union says temporary workers were not informed they were crossing a picket line

By Rebecca Vesely, STAFF WRITER

The health care union that led a 24-hour strike Wednesday at nine regional hospitals filed a lawsuit Friday against Sutter Health and a recruiting firm that hired replacement workers.

Service Employees International Union Local 250 is alleging that the hospital system and recruiting firm violated state law by not informing the replacement workers in advertisements that they would be crossing picket lines.

Employees who participated in the strike -- as many as 6,700 in the region -- won't be allowed back to work until Monday.

All nine Sutter hospitals hired replacement workers for the strike and subsequent four days, citing a need to provide continual care and fulfill temporary worker contracts.

At a news conference in San Francisco, union leaders held up copies of an advertisement that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle on Nov. 18 that sought housekeepers to work in a "hospital setting" for $1,100 a week.

"The law in the state of California says you cannot hire workers to replace workers without giving them notice they are going to be scabs," said Local 250 attorney William Sokol, using a derogatory term for temporary workers hired to replace employees on strike.

Sokol said the union is seeking damages and back pay for locked-out workers. The suit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court against Sutter Health, California Pacific Medical Center and Modern Industrial Services, the recruiting firm that hired the workers.

Bill Gleeson, spokesman for Sacramento-based Sutter Health, said listing Sutter in the lawsuit is a "plea for publicity."

"Sutter Health doesn't have any agreements with staffing agencies. It's done on the individual hospital level," Gleeson said.

Gleeson said the ads were placed by the staffing agency. "These temp agencies do this for a living," he said. "The people hired by those agencies are well aware of the work involved." Officials from Modern Industrial Services could not be reached for comment Friday. According to the agency's Web site, it is "America's leader in strike re-staffing," providing registered nurses, lab techs, physicians and other workers during labor disputes.

Union leaders and workers expressed concerns that the lockout was jeopardizing patient care because the replacement workers -- many of whom were brought in from out of state -- aren't familiar with hospital policies and patients.

"This lockout is about punishing caregivers for caring for our patients," said Jan Rodolfo, an oncology nurse at Summit hospital in Oakland.

Rodolfo said some of the families she treats describe the scene as "chaotic."

"They don't know or trust the people who are caring for their family members," she said. "It's outrageous."

Officials at Alta Bates Sum mit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland said 600 workers were brought in to replace the registered nurses, nurse aides, housekeepers, technicians, clerks and licensed vocational nurses who went on strike.

"What's happening at the bedside is exactly what should be happening," said hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Kemp. "The doctors are happy, and the patients are well cared for."

Kemp said 56 percent of union workers crossed the picket line the day of the strike. At Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, nearly half of workers went to work instead of striking, including all union workers in the trauma unit, a spokeswoman said.

Workers went on strike to protest alleged unfair labor practices by Sutter Health, which owns 27 hospitals in Northern California. Each Sutter medical center has a separate labor contract, and some of those expired months ago.

"We're on strike to force Sutter Health to put patients first," said Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU Local 250.

Contact Rebecca Vesely at rvesely [at] angnewspapers.com .