Wahiawa nurses strike drags into eighth week
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Health Writer
The strike by registered nurses at Wahiawa General Hospital enters its eighth week today with no new negotiations scheduled.
Both sides say they hope to resolve the dispute by getting back to the bargaining table, but neither shows any sign of changing its position.
Hospital spokesman Richard Aea said the hospital plans to hire traveling nurses to help cover the duties of the strikers.
"Unfortunately, that's the point where we are," he said.
Striking registered nurse Ella Siroskey said 59 of 65 nurses in the Hawai'i Nurses' Association bargaining unit have found interim jobs since the strike began on May 5. She said they have changed their picket line hours to between 7 and 10 a.m. most mornings to accommodate work schedules.
Two of the three hospitals where nurses went on strike late last year — Queen's, Kuakini and St. Francis — reached agreement on a new contract by the seventh week of their walkouts, and the last reached agreement in the eighth week.
"We're getting pretty frustrated, but the nurses are as strong as ever," Siroskey said. "All but six nurses are working elsewhere."
Aea has said the hospital has maintained outpatient services but cut back on overnight patients, nonemergency surgery and regularly scheduled labor and delivery services.
So far the strike's financial impact has been mixed. By not having to pay the nurses, the hospital has saved roughly $320,320 in salary costs, but also has lost revenue because of a reduction in the number of overnight patients.
Union members and management said the two sides are not far apart on wages. But there are sticking points in the benefits package, including health insurance, increased pay for more senior workers and access to retiree benefits.
Aea said the hospital has presented three offers to the nurses that it believes are affordable, with raises over the three-year contract proposal ranging 15 percent to 19 percent depending on the other benefits offered.
Nurses at Kuakini Medical Center and The Queen's Medical Center agreed to pay packages of 21 percent and 20 percent over three years. At St. Francis Medical Center, nurses ended up with an 18 percent raise.
Before the strikes, O'ahu's "Big Five" hospitals — Queen's, Kuakini, Kaiser, Kapi'olani and St. Francis — paid nurses from $20.55 an hour to as much as $38.86 an hour, which translates to an annual salary, before overtime, ranging from $42,744 to $80,829.
Wahiawa nurses earn $28.60 an hour. Both sides have said that about half of the nurses are full-time and the other half are part-time employees who work at least 20 hours each week.
Siroskey said the hospital's unwillingness to pay their nurses what those at other hospitals earn is demoralizing.
"If the strike is not resolved soon there will not be any experienced nurses to care for patients," Siroskey said.
The community-owned, nonprofit hospital grew out of an emergency medical facility set up during World War II at Wahiawa Elementary School. In 1944, community leaders founded an association to develop a permanent organization to serve the area's growing healthcare needs. Construction began in 1957.
"We feel that our offer is fair for what we are," Aea said. "We're a community hospital; we don't have the big cases — the open hearts and the transplants."
Sue Scheider, Hawai'i Nurses' Association collective bargaining director, said the nurses are seeking salary and benefits packages that they deserve.
Scheider said that the demands on the Wahiawa nurses require a different type of expertise.
"They all have a broader range of skills than you see at most hospitals in town," she said.
Keith Tamashiro, a member of the Wahiawa Neighborhood Board, said it is difficult to gauge the impact of the strike.
"Overall, it's a concern," Tamashiro said. "The community wonders what's going to happen."
Tamashiro said the small community hospital is part of the Central O'ahu town's identity. When people talk about Wahiawa, they often mention Lake Wilson and the hospital.
"There's a sense that the hospital is part of us," he said.
Sheri Bentley, chairwoman of the Wahiawa Neighborhood Board, works as a fund-raiser for the Wahiawa hospital association and would like to see the dispute resolved.
On one hand, she said, "the hospital is carrying on; the patients are being taken care of." But after seeing nurses she knows out on the picket line, she said: "I hope they get what they want."
Bentley said Wahiawa is a true community hospital in that it doesn't turn people away if they lack insurance.
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.
