After a series of strikes during the past two years protesting sweeping reductions in patient care, nurses’ standards and workplace conditions that Sutter Health system demanded during contract talks at San Francisco Bay area hospitals, some 3,000 registered nurses have reached a tentative agreement that eliminates more than 200 concession demands.

Some 725 registered nurses at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., won representation from California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) last week after beating back what they say was a “furious anti-union campaign by hospital management and its high paid anti-union consultants.”

Today, some 4,500 RNs at eight Sutter Health hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area are holding a one-day strike to dramatize the highly profitable health care chain’s demand for more than 100 sweeping reductions in patient care, nurse standards and workplace conditions.

Some 4,500 RNs at eight Sutter Health Bay Area hospitals will hold a one-day strike May 1 to dramatize the highly profitable health care chain’s demand for more than 100 sweeping reductions in patient care and nurses’ standards and workplace conditions. Sutter Health has made $4.2 billion in profits over the past five years, pays its CEO $4 million a year after a 215 percent raise and pays 21 top executives $1 million or more a year.

How’s this for a demonstration of cause and effect?

Cause—Yesterday, some 200 activists, led by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) rallied outside Blue Shield’s San Francisco corporate headquarters to protest the health insurance giant’s premium hikes of as much as 59 percent for California consumers.

A new study by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU) finds that California’s largest private insurance companies continue to deny more than one-fourth of all claims and two firms rejected about 40 percent of submitted claims.