Posted on: Thursday, January 2, 2003
Striking nurses holding the line, leaders say
By Matt Sedensky
Associated Press
As strikes drag on in their fifth week at three Honolulu hospitals, more than 100 nurses have crossed picket lines and returned to work, but union officials say morale remains high among the vast majority who continue their walkout.
According to human resources officials at St. Francis, Queen's and Kuakini medical centers, in all, at least 104 registered nurses have returned to their jobs.
More than 1,400 nurses walked off the job Dec. 2 and 3.
Just two nurses have returned to work at Kuakini Medical Center; nearly all of the hospital's 225 RNs under disputed contracts are still waiting out the strike.
At Queen's, officials say at least 60 RNs have crossed the line — just a fraction of approximately 800 nurses there whose contracts are under negotiation.
St. Francis reports 42 of about 340 nurses under disputed contracts are back on the job, but most of them didn't have to cross a picket line to return to work. The majority of those nurses are employees of the hospital's home-care program, which dispatches nurses to residences or residential hospice facilities in 'Ewa Beach and Nu'uanu.
"For a month into the strike for those numbers to be holding that well is really a tribute to the resolve those nurses have," said Sue Scheider, the collective bargaining director for the Hawai'i Nurses Association. "It would certainly be a lot easier for them to go back into the hospital and pick up a paycheck than be out in the hot sun."
Scheider said union members who return to work could face disciplinary action. Some union members have resigned their memberships to avoid steep fines — their entire earnings for each day of line-crossing labor.
"We don't like to impose fines," said David Haga, a member of Kuakini's negotiating team and an intensive-care nurse there. "But why should these individuals who are scabbing benefit from the nurses who are striking?"
Union leaders say fines are not the biggest thing to fear.
"The biggest consequence is how co-workers treat people who haven't honored the strike and go back to work," said Scheider. "I've seen those people in the past be totally shunned by nurses. For decades, they don't forget."
Some nurses say line-crossers are entering hospitals in areas not manned by picketers. Officials on both sides of the dispute say they have not heard of any specific instances of hostility toward nurses who do go back to work.
Bill Richter, 38, an emergency room nurse at Queen's and a member of the negotiating committee, said it's disappointing to see colleagues abandon the strike.
But Richter said few nurses make such a choice, and when they do it's often because they're in dire financial circumstances.
"They have a right to work as much as we have a right to strike," said Richter, a 13-year veteran of Queen's.
More than returning to their jobs, many nurses are seeking or have found employment elsewhere. Only a small number have officially resigned from positions.
But at union membership meetings held on Monday for St. Francis nurses, 60 of 76 RNs who attended said they were seriously considering leaving the hospital altogether, according to Scheider.
Scheider said that fact — that hospitals risk losing significant numbers of their nurses — would be noted when negotiations resume. All three hospitals have announced returns to the bargaining table.
The Queen's Medical Center will resume talks today. Tomorrow, St. Francis officials will meet with union members for the first time in more than a month. And on Monday, Kuakini will hold a bargaining session.
Nurses' new jobs and returns to their old ones have thinned out picket lines a bit. But they say numbers are fairly stable, and those who do picket are as committed to their cause as ever.
"We all realize that things are not going to get better, they're going to get worse," said Haga, a nurse at Kuakini for 16 years. "That's something we need to establish and change now."
