STANFORD: Talks with Striking Nurses Remain Stalled
As 1,700 nurses at two Stanford hospitals enter their 35th day on strike, little progress has been made in negotiations and "no settlement [is] in sight," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Settlement talks, which faltered last Thursday, resumed briefly yesterday, but with the federal mediator unavailable, hospital negotiators cut the meeting short. Hospital spokesperson Ben Drew said, "Our negotiating team felt the talks were not likely to be productive without the mediator." The two sides are scheduled to meet again with the mediator on Friday at 10 a.m. The strike took a nasty turn Monday, when union picketers blocked trucks delivering supplies at Stanford Hospital, leading to police intervention. Meanwhile, Kim Griffin, a spokeperson for the Committee for Recognition of Nursing Achievement, the union representing the nurses, will appear before the Palo Alto Human Resources Commission tomorrow to talk about "deteriorating" working conditions for nurses before and during the strike (Workman, 7/12).
Bay Area Deadline
In other strike news, some of the 4,000 Bay Area hospital workers who held a one-day strike last Thursday, have agreed to an Aug. 1 deadline to reach a new contract settlement. The workers, represented by Service Employees International Union Local 250, staged the walkout to protest low wages and reduced staffing levels (Wall Street Journal, 7/12).