Employment issues: A hot topic among health care workers

In Connecticut, the issue of unionizing home care attendants has sparked charged debate. Meanwhile in California, nurses -; in the midst of contract negotiations -; plan to picket at Sutter Health's Sacramento headquarters and nine of its hospitals; and, in Texas, nurses filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board regarding Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center's sick leave policy.

CT Mirror: Working Group On Collective Bargaining For Home Care Workers Draws Critics, Supporters
The fight over unionizing home care attendants continued Wednesday as the working group charged with recommending ways to structure collective bargaining rights for the workers heard testimony from the public. People who work as personal care attendants spoke of the challenges of doing their jobs with low pay, no benefits and no paid sick time. ... Opponents, including people with disabilities, home care workers and Republican legislators, said having a union wouldn't necessarily improve the workers' conditions -; particularly if they have to pay dues – and could harm the close relationship between the workers and the people they work for (Levin Becker, 12/21).

The Sacramento Bee: Nurses To Picket Sutter
Nurses planned to picket Sutter Health's Sacramento headquarters and nine of its Bay Area hospitals today in a dispute over contract negotiations. Some 4,000 registered nurses represented by California Nurses Association/National Nurses United are participating in the one-day walkout at the Sutter facilities, including those in Berkeley, Oakland and Vallejo.The nurses union had threatened the one-day strike if Sutter officials did not pull what union officials called "major concessions in patient care protections" from the bargaining table (Smith, 12/22).

Houston Chronicle: Cy-Fair Nurses Protest Sick-Leave Policy
Nurses at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center Wednesday filed a charge against the hospital with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing administrators of refusing to negotiate on a policy they say encourages nurses to come to work when they are sick. Brenda Landreville, a labor and delivery nurse at the 180-bed hospital and chief negotiator for the nurses' bargaining unit, said hospital policy allows nurses to be fired after six absences within a calendar year, and that they receive a verbal warning on the third absence."It encourages nurses to work when they're sick," Landreville said, "exposing fragile hospital patients and our co-workers to illness" (Kever, 12/21).