Unionized Nurses Begin Negotiations

Nurses at Columbia Los Robles Hospital, who struggled for more than two years to gain union representation, held their first negotiations with management as an official union Wednesday.

The initial talks were intended to set a timetable and guidelines for further contract negotiations. Four meetings were scheduled for February, said Jim Moreau, a union organizer with the American Federation of Nurses, Service Employees International Union Local 535.

“We had some discussion on noneconomic items,” he said.

“It went very smoothly. We feel optimistic that we will get a fair contract for the nurses at Los Robles.”

Moreau said hospital owner Columbia / HCA Healthcare Corp., the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain, recently settled a contract with nurses in San Jose.

Lesley Whitehouse, union president at the Thousand Oaks hospital and one of five nurses who are part of the negotiating team, said the union is concerned about a number of issues, including staffing, salary and benefits.

“Staffing is one the first issues we will put on the table,” Whitehouse said. “That is our main concern.” Nurses believe that there aren’t enough of them to care for patients, she said.

The next meeting is scheduled Feb. 3, Moreau said.

The nurses had voted to form a union in June 1995. But the hospital administration stalled the vote count with legal appeals. After a lengthy review, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in favor of the nurses, and the ballots were finally counted in August 1996.