Stanford Hospital nurses preparing to call strike

Thousands of nurses at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., are preparing for a strike, according to the San Jose Mercury-News, after three days of federal mediation failed to produce a deal with hospital administrators.

More than 2,800 of the 3,300 numbers of the Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement (CRONA) voted earlier this month to authorize a strike, before the mediator sessions.

“The CRONA Negotiating Team has been committed to securing a comprehensive agreement that truly values a Nurses' role in providing excellent care to Stanford and Packard patients,” said the union’s president Colleen Berges. “That is our bottom line, and we will not back off of it.”

Administrators at the two hospitals said negotiations will continue.

“The Hospitals remain committed to reaching a mutually acceptable agreement and we stand ready to go back to the table to bargain collaboratively and in good faith to completion," the hospitals said in a statement, according to the Mercury-News.

Before any walkout takes place, the union would have to issue a formal declaration of a strike, and give the hospitals 10 days’ notice.

Such an action would not be unprecedented, as CRONA members have organized strikes twice before, in 1974 and 2000, with the latter walkoff lasting 50 days. The Mercury-News reported it was the largest nursing strike in California history.

The two sides have been negotiating since February, but the union says the hospital has rejected its proposals for annual wage increases of 7 percent, 6 percent, and 6 percent over three years.

Another sticking point has been cap on weekly “on-call” hours required of full-time nurses. The union proposed a 12-hour weekly cap, while the hospital countered with a 24-hour weekly limit.