S.F. Reaches Tentative OK on Nurse Pact
The city Board of Supervisors late Monday approved a tentative agreement that is expected to avert a crippling strike by 2,000 nurses at San Francisco General Hospital and other city-run facilities.
The one-year pact, which will be voted on today, would give the nurses a minimum 8% raise, effective in 1989. The nurses had threatened to walk out on Wednesday.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Aug. 10, 1988 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday August 10, 1988 Home Edition Part 1 Page 2 Column 5 Metro Desk 2 inches; 64 words Type of Material: Correction
The Times erroneously reported Tuesday the numbers of registered nurses involved in contract talks and strikes in San Francisco. Representatives of 1,600 nurses at San Francisco General and other city-run facilities, members of United Public Employees Local 790, Sunday reached a tentative contract agreement with the city. About 2,100 members of the California Nurses Assn. are on strike at seven private hospitals in San Francisco and nearby Daly City.
Salaries of city employees, including the nurses, had been frozen as part of Mayor Art Agnos’ efforts to meet a $180-million city budget shortfall.
Meanwhile, strikes by 1,600 registered nurses against private San Francisco area hospitals continued into their seventh day.
The walkouts began Aug. 2 at six hospitals represented by Affiliated Hospitals of San Francisco and spread Saturday to a seventh, French Hospital.
Shift Objection
The nurses want increased staffing and object to management attempts to impose mandatory 12-hour shifts.
In addition, about 1,700 licensed vocational nurses and other support workers represented by Local 250 of the Hospital and Health Care Workers’ Union have been on strike since June 26 at eight affiliated hospitals, including one not being struck by the registered nurses, who are represented by the California Nurses Assn.
Negotiators for affiliated and the two unions met late Monday with Agnos and a federal mediator, but did not resume the bargaining that was cut off when the strikes began.
“There are some very serious differences,” Agnos said Monday night at City Hall after three hours of separate talks with each group. He added that while he planned to meet with the groups again this morning, he was uncertain when the hospitals and their workers would resume direct talks.
Talks More Difficult
The mayor said the talks were not going as well as they did with the public nurses.
The city reached agreement Sunday morning with negotiators for the 2,000 public nurses.
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