As many as 4,000 registered nurses are expected to begin a 10-day strike this morning at eight Bay Area hospitals operated by the Sutter Health network. This is the third action in six months against Sutter Health hospitals by nurses represented by the California Nurses Association, and today's walkout is scheduled to be the longest. The union held two-day strikes in October and December, but nurses at some facilities were kept off their jobs longer because hospital managers said they needed to hire replacement workers for longer than two days. Management and unionized nurses remain in dispute over contract negotiations that began last spring.
See "Sutter nurses plan 10-day strike", Victoria Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 2008