Officials Seek Intervention in Dispute With Nurses : Health: Supervisors will be asked to force the hospital workers, who are threatening to strike, to accept a contract that cuts their pay and benefits.

With negotiations deadlocked and nurses threatening to strike, Ventura County health officials will ask the Board of Supervisors today to force nurses at the county hospital to accept an overall cut in pay and benefits.

But the nurses want the board to delay action until they can return to the negotiating table and modify the contract, particularly its provisions allowing Ventura County Medical Center to lay off even the most senior nurses and send others home when the wards are empty.

“I feel the administration is a little too far removed from what we’re doing,” said Sheila Raives, an intensive-care nurse and member of the employees’ negotiating team. “Being at the bedside, we’re the best people to say where to save money.”

Raives and about 60 employees marched in front of the hospital Monday, protesting the county’s proposal to proceed with its “final and best offer,” rather than work for a compromise.

But county health officials, in their resolution to the Board of Supervisors, said that months of meetings ended in impasse, “making further negotiations futile.”

The contract, as drafted, would save the county as much as $1 million a year, which county officials say is needed as part of overall budget tightening.

“I think we’re up against the wall as far as the money is concerned,” Supervisor John K. Flynn said. The board will consider the contract at today’s meeting and could vote as soon as April 12.

Flynn said he expects that he will vote for the proposal, but hopes to see changes in workplace practices that are damaging morale.

The nurses, still angry about changes in their work schedules that cost them pay, are contemplating a strike if the county proceeds with the controversial contract.

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Two weeks ago, the local chapter of the California Nurses Assn. voted to authorize a walkout. But the union delayed action in hopes of bringing the county back to the negotiating table.

“Nobody wants to strike, but if they give us no other options, we may do it,” union representative Tammy Gamblin said.

Concerned about the potential strike, county officials went to court last week to block a walkout by 208 of the county’s 334 nurses who provide “vital services.” Superior Court Judge Edwin M. Osborne issued a temporary restraining order, requiring nurses to give at least 72 hours notice before a walkout. He will consider more permanent restrictions at an April 11 hearing.

Nurses say they hope that the hospital and the county don’t push them into a strike, which would be a first by Ventura County’s nurses.

“I don’t want to leave,” said Ann Hallett, a neonatal nurse, who ate her lunch as she marched in Monday’s protest. “But I want to start using my energy in a positive way.”

Hallett said her pay was cut 14% when the hospital unilaterally adjusted shifts and cut her hours. Now, she and other employees fear that the new contract would further reduce pay and gut the hospital’s seniority system, exposing senior nurses to layoffs. They also fear that the hospital would send licensed nurses home when there are few patients, and leave non-licensed, lower-paid employees on duty as a way to save money.

Hospital officials say they have no intention of replacing nurses with non-licensed workers. And they defend the contract changes as necessary given the cost reductions sweeping the health care industry.

“We are not trying to single out nurses,” hospital administrator Pierre Durand said Monday. “Health care is going through a lot of adjustments. There’s a lot of frustration. There’s a lot of pain.”