You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
JFI. It's Later with mo Kelly.
We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app. Let's talk to registered nurse Amy Wolke, who is at Miller Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach as we talk about the forthcoming strike, the one day strike, which is coming up on Thursday, May twenty second. Amy, how are you this evening.
I'm doing well. How are you, Mo?
I'm doing fine, And I want to add that you're also on the bargaining team, so you will literally be sitting at the table. This is presuming that management comes to the table. I spoke to one of your colleagues about a week or so ago, and at that point management had not made any overtures that they were ready to negotiate.
Has anything changed, No.
Nothing has changed, and if anything, it's just got and I guess a lot more stressful in the hospital setting. Not only am I on the bargaining team, but I'm also one of the nurses that was laid off in the outpatient specialty clinic that we call the village, the Children's Village, So I'm wearing a couple of different hats. Right now, I'm trying to support my nurses and I'm also trying to support myself through this hard time.
How many I'm sorry jump in there, but how many people were laid off in this most recent round of medical staff being laid off?
We had about seventy nurses laid off. Fifty five nurses in the outpatient setting. In the specialty center where we take care of kids with all kinds of special needs chronic health conditions, forty seven out of sixty nine of our nurses were laid out. That's seventy percent of our nurses.
Would you have that much of a loss of staff, How does that translate to patient care?
Where does that impact you.
Personally? I think it's going to really impact patient care. A lot of our nurses out in the outpatient center. We had a meeting today and some of those nurses have been nursing for thirty years, some of them twenty years. And in the outpatient setting, a lot of us, like I'm one of the new beasts and I've been there
eight years. So it's been a place where we have brought our skill and our love for these kids to keep them safe and to keep them healthy, and by taking us out of the village, we feel that it is not going to be a safe place for these kids right now. Anyway.
What are nurses at Long Beach Medical Center asking for in this hopefully eventual negotiation.
What are we asking for? We are asking for all kinds of things. We're asking to address our concerns about staffing, about workplace violence, and recruitment and retention. We have situations where our nurses and some of our units, like the NICK you that's the Neonatal Intensive Care unit, the intensive care unit, and in the er. These nurses all work twelve hour shifts, but sometimes they don't get breaks, and
sometimes they're asked to work another four hours. Now, think about that, trying to care for sick patients and you're trying to do that over a sixteen hour period. So we are really concerned first of all for our nurses and their safety, but also for our patient safety.
Beyond the patient safety, I understand that management is going to be bringing in other nurses for this one day strike to cover the staff who will be striking.
How does that play out? Is that even feasible.
That they can take care of our patients correct well, I'm sure that they will be able to take care of them. Will they be able to do as good of a job as we do? No, And we we
feel you know, the hospital's response. You know, first of all, we gave the strike notice, and we gave it a day before our last bargaining day with the hopes that they were going to come to the table and give us a you know, some some things that we could actually look at, that we could talk about, because we haven't felt like there's been a good conversation going back and forth in terms of these proposals. So this one day strike, we did that because we wanted to take
care of our patients. And you know, locking us out for five days mendous cost to the medical center and to the community. You know, they signed the contract to replace us for five days. That's millions of dollars that they could have put back into the hospital and put into you know, safety. You know, we're we're asking we have we have issues with workplace violence, and we've asked for you know, metal detectors or and you know, they said, well, yeah,
we'll get that for you. But now they're saying we can't. You know, maybe they're not going to do that right away, the way that they were going to the nurses in the outpatient setting were offered a severance package, they're now saying that they're not going to give us that severage severance package because it's costing them money to bring those other nurses in. So we're upset.
Beyond being upset, I as an outsider, am looking at this from thirty thousand feet up, as they say, and I see that there is a management component who doesn't seem willing to come to the bargaining table and is okay with going through or enduring this quote unquote one day strike, even though it may be over five days
that you've been locked out. If we are to assume that management is going to hold their stance and not come to the bargaining table at least in the near future, does that mean that your union will then possibly call for a longer strike in the future.
We're gonna take one day to time here, We're going to get through this strike. We're gonna get back and take care of our patients and you know, and then we will discuss next steps. Right now, we're not there. We want to focus on the present and just getting through the next few days.
Amy, can I get you to hold on for a moment. I'd love to carry over our conversation into the next segment. Can you do that for me?
Sure?
Joining me right now on the line is registered nurse Amy Woke. She is at Miller Children and Women's Hospital, formerly at Long Beach Medical Center. We're talking about the upcoming forthcoming strike, the one day strike on Thursday, May twenty second of nurses who have also been locked out for five days by management. We're going to talk about what is going to happen during the strike and what is going to happen possibly moving forward.
We'll have more in just a moment. It's Later with mo Kelly.
We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
With We're live everywhere on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app, and if you just tuning in, I'm right in the middle of a conversation with registered nurse Amy Woke, who works at Miller Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach, but she's also on the bargaining team for Long Beach Medical Center nurses who are going to go on a one day strike on Thursday, May twenty second, but they've also been locked out by management over the course of five days. And Amy, let me bring you back into
the conversation. We talked about what has been leading up to this moment, how management from where you said, has not been responsive to your requests, your demands, or even the desire to negotiate. And I was asking you about what the future may hold, and you're trying to take this one step at a time. But at the beginning of our conversation, I talked about how there were a
number of nurses and staff which was laid off. I just want to make sure that I have my information correct that there was no management who was laid off.
It was just frontline nurses. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's my understanding it. You know, there were a couple of respiratory therapists. I think that we're also laid off, and a few other people within the hospital, but no high management at all, no management at all. Yeah, And you know, the whole thing about the strike is interesting.
You know, they keep saying that we're in the hole in terms of money, yet they're willing to spend four days extra on a lockout, which is costing millions of dollars, which again that they could have put back into the contracts, back into nursing care. It's like they really need to get rid of the seventy eight nurses if they can put this amount of money into bringing in outside nurses. From what there's a disconnect.
From what you understand. This is just a cost cutting measure. They're trying to get rid of staff. They're trying to make sure that you did not get raises. What has management said about any of this up until this point as far as the why.
The why is basically the concern for medical cruts. They're coming and we're also seeing the hospitals nationwide are not
being reimbursed as much. So, but I think, you know there, I think there's more to it, and I just can't put my finger on it, but I you know, it's just very frustrating when we're sitting across the table and the hospital keeps you know, what they want to focus on is taking our rights as nurses away, trying to take our union away from us, and not focusing on the bigger problems.
You say, you say, take your union away.
You think that they're actively trying to bust the union altogether. It's bigger than this one particular negotiation.
Yes, yes, I think you know. They're looking at trying to prevent our union reps from coming into the hospital. They don't want nurse reps to come into the hospital. It's called loitering. They want to make it so that we have to go through what's called mandatory arbitration, which means that if we get hurt in the hospital, they want us to go to their lawyers to have them figure it out, instead of us being able to hire
our own lawyer. And the way I see it is there's a lack of respect for nursing in the hospital. We are considered units of service. That was a term that was used across the table, that we are units of service. So they're looking at us in terms of widgets or in terms of a business model. Healthcare should not be a business model. Healthcare should be available to anybody and everybody. And in this time, our healthcare system
is turning into a sick care model. When we wipe out the nurses in the specialty center where we're taking care of kids with chronic health conditions, having them live to the best of their ability, and then you take those nurses away, those kids are going to end up back in the hospital. So what are we doing?
Amy?
My time is running out with you, but I want you to put it in as stark terms as possible. If an agreement is not reached in the near future between the nurses of Long Beach Medical Center and management, what does that mean for patients?
What does that mean for medical care bigger picture?
Because I assume whatever happens in Long Beach Medical Center could probably happen at any other hospital.
Well, I think you know again, I want to focus on what's happening now. I can't look too far out into the future. I want to focus on what we can possibly do now. And we do have hope that the hospital will come back to the table after the strike and that you know, safe staffing is key for taking care of our patients and for attracting and retaining staff nurses, So you know, they need to invest in us and hopefully they'll bring some of us back.
It's later with mo Kelly. Thanks so much, Amy Woke for coming on.
She is a nurse at Miller Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach. We will continue to follow that story it's Later with Mo Kelly KFI AM six forty. We're live on YouTube, we're live on Instagram, we're live on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty