A Superior Court judge in Sacramento barred 9,000 registered nurses at the University of California from holding a one-day strike today at UC hospitals and student health centers, heightening tensions between the nurses union and the Schwarzenegger administration.
The California Nurses Assn. called the strike this month because its negotiators were unable to reach agreement on a new contract with the UC system. But the state Public Employment Relations Board convinced Judge Loren E. McMaster on Wednesday that the strike would probably be illegal because negotiations had not reached an impasse.
The nurses union said its members would stage informational pickets and rallies today at UC medical centers -- including UCLA hospitals in Westwood and Santa Monica -- but they would obey the judge's order to report to work.
Labor officials blamed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for trying to undermine nurses' pensions and to soften the state-mandated ratio of patients that each nurse is allowed to care for.
"Everything leads back to Schwarzenegger," said Rose Ann DeMoro, the union's executive director. "There's an agenda in the state of California basically to reduce staffing ratios, to go after pensions and it's all playing out here at the University of California....The nurses are furious."
The UC system extended its final offer last month, the nurses rejected it, and the two sides have not met since. UC spokesman Noel Van Nyhuis characterized the system's proposal as fair and said its hospitals put patient care first. The last contract expired April 30, but had been extended through July 8.
UC President Robert C. Dynes told reporters that he was "absolutely pleased" with the injunction. "I believe we should be working this out at the bargaining table," he said at the beginning of the two-day regents' meeting, held at UC San Francisco's Laurel Heights campus.
Until the judge delayed the strike, UC hospitals were lining up temporary nurses and, in some cases, delaying elective surgeries.
UC Davis also stopped accepting transfers from other hospitals and had planned to shut down some of the intensive care units and to close its emergency department and trauma center to walk-in patients.
Now that the strike has been called off, officials said the medical center is working to get back to normal. "Even planning for the strike had a profound effect on us," said Sharon Melberg, the Davis hospital's assistant director of patient care services.
