Sutter's Open Checkbook - for Strikebreakers, Offering $90 per Hour, "luxury hotel" stay

When it comes to paying for professional strike breakers, the sky is apparently the limit for Sutter Health corporation, according to recruitment flyers obtained and released today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

Nearly 5,000 registered nurses will be on strike Oct. 10 and 11 at 15 Northern California hospitals, all but two part of Sutter Health.

Though CNA provided the hospitals with 12 days, advance notice to allow the hospitals to postpone elective procedures and scale back as needed, and has established patient care task forces of striking RNs to assist in the case of genuine patient emergencies, Sutter officials have chosen to hire strikebreaking agencies for several of their hospitals.

And they are apparently willing to spend unlimited amounts for both the nurses who will cross picket lines and the agencies that bring them in.

One flyer sent to nurses in Ohio offers nurses “up to $90” per hour, airfare or other transportation to the Bay Area, and stays in “luxury accommodations in San Francisco. Minutes from the San Francisco shopping centers and downtown attractions. You are driven to the hospital from your luxury hotel.” (flyer available upon request)

The flyer lists a phone number for Health Source Global Staffing. The flyer says the nurses are “needed between October 8th and October 15” – a clear indication that Sutter intends to lock out some RNs after the strike ends on Oct. 11.

On its website, HSGS also treats the recruitment of professional strike breakers as a luxury tourist opportunity, noting, “See your friends and tour California during the best time of year.”

In addition to exorbitant pay for the strike nurses, travel, hotel, and other benefits, the strike agencies typically demand additional payment for its officials, their travel costs, other perquisites, and office equipment. The total price tag could be in the millions. 

“This is a shameful waste of critical resources by Sutter that could be far better spent on addressing its serious patient care problems and protecting the retirement security of its RNs,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, CNA/NNOC executive director. “The tone of revelry from the recruitment materials shows the disdain these fly-by-night agencies, and the hospital corporations that employ them, have for our communities, and that Sutter has for its RNs.”