St. John’s Nurses to Strike for Four Days
Nurses at St. John's hospitals in Oxnard and Camarillo will go on strike for four days, beginning Feb. 1, the Ventura County Star reports. According to nurses, the strike seeks to address staffing issues left unresolved after a 14-day strike in December that ended without settlement. Although a federal mediator has asked both sides to meet Jan. 30 and Jan. 31, hospital administrators have said they are already preparing to hire replacements. Armando Azarloza, spokesperson for Catholic Healthcare West, which owns both hospitals, said the announcement surprised administrators, who had thought that "progress was being made" during negotiations (Marquez, Ventura County Star, 1/24). But the nurses say talks "have yielded little progress." Susan Franks, a nurse at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, said, "We say nurses should have a say in staffing and they disagree -- and that's where it is," (Kelly, Los Angeles Times, 1/24).