Nurses union ordered to pay $6.26 million to Riverside hospital for strikes during pandemic – San Bernardino Sun

Riverside Community Hospital nurses, all members of the SEIU Local 121RN union, demonstrate outside the hospital grounds in Riverside on Friday, June 26, 2020, to begin a 10-day strike over patient and nurse safety issues. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

A nurses’ union was recently ordered to pay $6.26 million to Riverside Community Hospital in a dispute over a 2020 nurses’ strike.

An independent arbitrator on May 31 ordered the local nurses union, SEIU Local 121RN, to pay the fine to cover the cost of replacement workers during the nurses’ 10-day strike over staffing and protective equipment shortages just six months after the coronavirus pandemic began in June 2020.

It is the second half of a May 2023 arbitrator’s decision, which found that nurses from SEIU Local 121RN – which represents 9,000 nurses and health care workers in Southern California – had not followed due process set out in their contract before the strike, the hospital said in a press release.

The hospital also argued that the reasons for the strike were not included in the hospital’s contract because nurses had raised concerns about personal protective equipment.

In a June 13 press release, Jackie Van Blaricum, president of HCA Healthcare’s Far West Division and the hospital’s CEO during the strike, said the union’s call for a strike showed “reckless disregard” for the community.

However, union executive director Rosanna Mendez insists that the union has not violated its contract with the hospital and plans to “take all available measures to reverse the decision.”

She said the union began discussions with the hospital about staff shortages and reached a staffing agreement in May 2019 that runs until May 2020.

The union had tried to extend the contract before it expired in May 2020, but the hospital rejected all attempts to negotiate an extension, Mendez said, and the union announced a strike shortly thereafter.

She also defended the nurses’ demand for more personal protective equipment during the strike.

In a 2020 union press release, several nurses described the hectic conditions in the hospital during the pandemic.

Some said they were not given a break for up to eight hours, while others said they were sometimes required to stay with patients for five to seven hours at a time, leaving dozens of other patients unattended. In addition, one nurse said many of her colleagues had contracted COVID-19 due to a lack of safety measures, and two staff members had died.

“In the midst of a global pandemic, nurses are experiencing traumatic experiences on a daily basis,” Mendez said. “To expect nurses not to talk about personal protective equipment is outrageous.”