Beverly Nurses Fight for Quality Patient Care, Fair Wages, & Union Protections

by Ken Deitz, RN and Barbara Blake, RN, United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals

Beverly Hospital is a community hospital that serves working families in Montebello, Pico Rivera, Monterey Park, El Monte, Whittier, and East Los Angeles. In recent years, the quality of care at Beverly has plummeted. The hospital’s roof is leaking, there isn’t enough medical equipment, and existing equipment is broken. Wages are so low that the hospital can’t keep enough experienced nurses to maintain safe staffing levels as required by state law.

While hospital administrators refuse to invest in Beverly’s staff and equipment, the hospital’s CEO, Gary Kiff, has been getting pay raises and bonuses, now making more than $400k a year.

Over the years, Beverly’s Registered Nurses have made repeated individual attempts to speak to management about our concerns – but we have gotten nowhere. We chose to form a union so that we would have a real voice in patient care and working conditions. We affiliated with the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), NUHHCE, AFSCME.

For nearly a year, we have been attempting to negotiate a first union contract that will assure that there are enough experienced nurses to meet California safe staffing laws. We are also hoping that our union contract will provide a structure that allows us to work with hospital administrators to improve patient care. But management has retained a well-known “union buster” attorney to negotiate the contract and little progress has been made.

We need your help! Please join us in our fight by signing our online petition today. You can learn more about our campaign and find a link to the petition at www.demandqualitycare.org. You can also find us on Facebook at “Beverly Nurses.” Thank you for your support.