Scrubs and Scabs
The AP is reporting that nurses in Sin City are preparing to go on strike.
A union representing 800 nurses edged closer to a strike Sunday when one of the nation's largest hospital companies rejected a call for a new round of contract negotiations. Union officials were meeting Sunday night to determine their next course of action, said Chris Coil, spokesman for the Service Employees International Union. Nurses at Valley and Desert Springs hospitals had been scheduled to go on strike Monday morning.
Not surprisingly, a major bone of contention is staffing levels. For years hospital corporations have been cutting costs by increasing the patient-to-nurse ratio. And by many accounts, patient care has suffered. The union and hospital are also apparently "split over compensation and union-access rights." Anxious to avoid the disruptive effects of a strike on the state's citizens, government officials have tried to mediate the conflict, thus far to no avail:
"A strike could cripple the delivery of medical care critical to the lives and well-being of thousands of southern Nevadans," said Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons, who urged another round of negotiations to try to break the impasse.
The response of the hospital officials is puzzling:
Executives at Universal Health Services, Inc., based in King of Prussia, Pa., rejected the request, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley said. The company is the parent of the two hospitals. The two hospitals represent one of every three hospital beds in the Las Vegas core. Hospital officials began preparing for the strike by installing fences around their parking lots.
Building fences around the parking lot may mean that the hospital plans to bring in scabs to replace the striking nurses as to avoid too adversely impacting the scabs-to-scrubs ratio.