Stanford Hospitals Declare Impasse Over Nurse Contracts
PALO ALTO (KCBS) – There's a renewed possibility of a nursing strike at both Stanford and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, as the two sides have declared a labor impasse.
The stalemate comes after more than 12 months of failure to reach a contract.
Hospital spokesman Robert Dicks said negotiations have been frustrating.
"Last March, we even offered the last, best and final offer to the CRONA union. We participated with the union in several months of federal mediation. We even signed tentative contract agreements," Dicks said. "The agreements required a simple majority of CRONA membership to ratify the agreement, but that was not achieved."
KCBS' Mike Colgan Reports:
Nurses union attorney Peter Nussbaum said the key sticking point is the new level of advancement that the hospital wants to impose on nurses.
"The result of that would be that the most experienced nurses, the ones who have the best bedside skills, will effectively be demoted," Nussbaum said. "And they're going to say to themselves, why should I be demoted here when I can go to Kaiser, which just gave its nurses a very nice wage increase."
Nussbaum said the new contract that the hospital has imposed raises the possibility of a strike.
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