STANFORD: Nurses Strike Continues, Negotiations Resume
Negotiating for the first time since calling a strike on June 7, officials at Stanford University's two hospitals and nurses union leaders met Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Talks were stalled after the two sides could not agree on wage increases. The nurses were asking for a 21% raise over two years, but the hospitals offered only an 8% increase (6/15). Following the session, union leaders remained pessimistic. According to union spokesperson Kim Griffin, the nurses reduced their salary demands to 17.5% on Friday, but hospital officials would not move from their 8% offer. Griffin said that during negotiations in previous years nurses accepted increases that did not keep up with the cost-of-living. "The hospital now wants to waste millions of dollars a week on replacement nurses, plus suffer lost revenue from decreased services, since not as much surgery is going on," she added. While hospital officials said details of the negotiations were unavailable, spokesperson Melodie Jackson said, "Going into talks today, the sticking points still revolved around salary." Talks are scheduled to continue today (McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/17).
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