No deal after fourth straight day of talks between Kapi’olani, nurses
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / JAN. 21
Negotiations ended Sunday with no resolution between Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women & Children and the union representing about 600 nurses who have been locked out of the hospital for over a week. Shown here, nurses hold a one-week strike in January.
A fourth straight day of contract negotiations ended today with no resolution between Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women & Children and the union representing about 600 nurses who have been barred from work for over a week.
Talks between management of the nonprofit hospital and the Hawaii Nurses’ Association began at 10 a.m. and ended by 4:30 p.m.
HNA officials said it plans to hold a demonstration outside Kapi‘olani hospital Monday from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. to highlight the lockout’s impact on families and the healthcare system.
Unionized nurses have been barred from working at the hospital since the morning of Sept. 14 at the end of a one-day strike, which was HNA’s second walkout this year after a weeklong strike in January.
Management has refused to allow them to come back to work until they approve a new contract.
The parties returned to the bargaining table on Sept. 19, where they exchanged counter proposals and negotiated until 10 p.m. They also met on Friday, Saturday and again today. An HNA spokesperson said today that the union presented a new proposal to management.
The nurses have been working without a contract since December. Negotiations over a new three-year contract have dragged on for over a year, and at one point involved a federal mediator.
Nurses say they have been burdened with too many patients at one time, sometimes without adequate training, and that they need ratio limits for patient safety and to avoid mandatory overtime.
Administrators of the hospital, which is run by Hawaii Pacific Health, say management needs flexibility to respond to changing situations as they arise, and that they are working on a “staffing matrix” to address nurses’ concerns.
Pressure on both sides has been mounting.
Parents of one Kapi‘olani patient, a 4-year-old girl who died Tuesday, have come forward to say that they believe diminished care by the hospital’s temporary nursing staff was a factor in their child’s death.
The locked-out nurses, meanwhile, will lose their healthcare benefits if an agreement is not reached before Oct. 1.
