Unionized nurses at Riverside Community Hospital intend to walk off the job next week to show their discontent with working conditions after six months of negotiations with the facility’s corporate ownership have failed.
According to Service Employees International Union Local 121RN, the strike will commence at 7 a.m. Wednesday and continue at intervals to the morning of Monday, Nov. 27.
The RCH workers’ stoppage will coincide with similar ones at Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Palms and West Hills Hospital.
SEIU Local 121RN represents over 1,000 healthcare workers at RCH, but it was unclear how many would be participating in the labor action, which will generally run from 7 a.m. to noon daily over the five-day period, with curtailed hours on Thanksgiving.
The hospitals’ proprietor, Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The picketing stems from stalled labor negotiations, which started in May, according to the union.
Nurses complain that nurse-to-patient ratios are creating a “system-wide crisis” because units are under-staffed, according to an SEIU statement.
The union said that over the last three years, California Department of Public Health officials determined there had been hundreds of staffing violations at each of the medical facilities.
“On many hospital units, patient sitters — who carefully monitor patients and intervene to prevent falls and injuries — are replaced by off-site virtual sitters, who watch patients on a video monitor and can only give verbal instructions, often to patients who are confused or facing emotional crisis,” according to an SEIU statement. “Nurses say that this system is woefully inadequate to help patients who can inadvertently, or intentionally, harm themselves.”
Other complaints included deficient security to prevent workplace violence, the prevention of union reps from entering some facilities to communicate with members and “disinformation” circulated by administrators related to the previous work stoppage in 2020.
There was no specific mention regarding salary and benefits hikes, though SEIU 121RN Executive Director Rosanna Mendez pointed out that “working people everywhere are demanding recognition for their sacrifice, and that sentiment is strongly felt by healthcare workers.”
It was unclear how RCH would handle staffing, or whether any shortages are anticipated as a result of the labor action during the holiday period.