HONOLULU — The Hawaii Nurses’ Association/Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 50 is seeking an injunction to stop Kapi‘olani Medical Center from locking unionized nurses out of the hospital following a planned one-day strike, the union’s second this year.
HNA/OPEIU Local 50 on Friday filed an unfair labor practice charge against Hawai‘i Pacific Health and Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women & Children with the National Labor Relations Board asking for injunctive relief to stop the hospital from locking out its own unionized nurses.
HNA President Rose Agas-Yuu, who has worked as a Kap‘iolani nurse for the past 32 years, said in a statement that the new unfair labor practice charge was the seventh filed against Kapi‘olani in the past several months.
In the charge, HNA/OPEIU Local 50 alleged that Hawai‘i Pacific Health and Kapi‘olani Medical Center has violated the National Labor Relations Act by failing and refusing to bargain in good faith. The charge alleges that the lockout is unlawful because the action is intended to punish the nurses for exercising their protected right to strike this Friday.
“When will the cycle of retaliation and intimidation stop? The lockout is a blatant act of retaliation against the nurses for protesting the retaliation they faced for filing safe staffing forms,” Agas-Yuu said. “This supports why the nurses are planning to hold the one-day strike for unfair labor practices. This pattern of unfair labor practices by Kapi‘olani violates the federally protected rights of workers.”
Gidget Ruscetta, chief operating officer for Kapi‘olani, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “We have not received any new charge from the National Labor Relations Board asking to stop the lockout. Just as the union has the right to go on strike, we have the right to impose a lockout. We’re confident in our legal position.”
Ruscetta said Kapi’olani amended its “last-best-and-final offer” in March and in August. She said Kapi‘olani and the HNA met Thursday but disagreed on wages and staffing.
“We value our nurses. By the third year of our current offer, our nurses will earn between $133,000 to $160,000 for a 3-day work week,” Ruscetta said. “In addition to the base salary, we are offering our nurses a generous benefit package, bonuses and incentive pay.”
A key divide is that unionized nurses want fixed nurse-to-patient ratios to avoid nurses being overburdened with too many patients at one time, and to improve nurse retention as well as patient recovery and survival rates.
“Fixed ratios assume that all patients are the same and require the exact same care, which of course is not the case, especially when you are caring for infants, children and women,” Ruscetta said.
Agas-Yuu said Kapi‘olani has “has never once said that they cannot afford any of our proposals, including additional staff for patient care or our wage proposals that barely keep up with inflation.”
Kapi‘olani and HNA have agreed to bargain again today, and Ruscetta said that “HNA could prevent the lockout by unconditionally accepting Kapi‘olani’s offer.”
Otherwise, Kapi‘olani’s lockout would begin after the Friday strike ends and prevent all registered nurses represented by HNA from returning to work until an agreement is reached.
Agas-Yuu said, “It’s morally indefensible for Kapi‘olani to lock out the nurses who care for our keiki and community until nurses give in to their contract demands.”
Ruscetta said in the event of a lockout, Kapi‘olani is prepared to bring in a temporary workforce experienced in the care of women and children to ensure that patients do not see a disruption in care.
However, HNA’s weeklong strike Jan. 21-28 came with some challenges, especially for patients.
Ruscetta said, “We found ourselves having concerns expressed from parents regarding the difficulties that their babies were affected by the noise and then there were difficulties from our obstetrical patients accessing the hospital because of the picketing,” Ruscetta said. “So we have the little noise cancellations for the ears for the babies, and then we will monitor carefully for the access and the driveways to be open so that our parents can get in.”
Tensions have been heating up between HNA and Kapi‘olani management since Dec. 1, when the previous labor contract expired. Some 96% of HNA-represented nurses voted over Labor Day weekend to authorize a new strike, and on Tuesday HNA filed a 10 days’ strike notice.
The nurses union has said the latest strike is due to “unfair labor practices” and allege management has harassed employees that have filled out safe-staffing forms used to report situations like having too many patients at one time or not having adequate training to care for a particular patient.
Ruscetta said the number of safe-staffing forms submitted to management varies from month to month.
“We deny that we have engaged in any unfair labor practices. Kapi‘olani has cooperated with HNA and responded to staffing or training issues when raised by its members,” she said.
I support the nurses!