Striking nurses and health care workers continue three-day walkout

In the second day of a three-day walkout, hundreds of union health care workers walked picket lines and waved signs Tuesday outside Maui Health facilities in a labor dispute over safe staffing and wages.

The union aims to make a point: that management see the importance of adequate staffing, but Maui Health released a statement that its hospitals and clinics are “well-staffed,” even with the strike.

“We have a highly skilled team of temporary staff working alongside our dedicated employees, ensuring minimal disruption to services,” an emailed Maui Health statement reported.

More than 900 members of the United Nurses and Health Care Employees of Hawaiʻi are scheduled to go back to work at 7 a.m. Nov. 7. The walkout began at 7 a.m. Monday at Maui Memorial Medical Center, Kula Hospital and Lāna‘i Community Hospital.

Maui Health previously reported that tentative agreements had been reached, before the strike began, on all non-economic items. Unresolved issues remained wages, benefits and staffing.

Matt Pelc, a radiology cat scan tech who has worked six years at Maui Memorial, serves as union chapter chair and is a member of the bargaining team. On Tuesday morning, he said the next bargaining session is scheduled for Nov. 14.

There will be no talks during the three-day strike, he said.

Union members are “happy to stand up for themselves,” Pelc said. They’ve observed bargaining sessions and seen the “disrespect management has showed” union negotiators.

Some nurses cried when the strike began Monday, he said. “They don’t want to walk off the job. They want to be helping the patients, helping the community.”

Adequate staffing is a major sticking point between the striking union members and management, Pelc said.

“If they don’t address staffing, they’re not going to get a contract done,” he said.

In early discussions with nursing managers, there was agreement about what staffing levels should be or what should be strived for, he said. But that has not been embraced by upper management as far as agreeing to put it in the contract, he added.

“Someone in management is saying ‘no,’ ” Pelc said.

Safe staffing levels are dependent on where nurses are caring for patients, he said. For example, an intensive care unit patient needs a maximum amount of care, and a nurse should not be assigned to care for more than two patients per shift. Many ICU patients are intubated, and “when something goes bad in ICU… it can be really bad,” he said.

On other floors where patients are more stable, nurses can handle more patients, he said. But there are limits. One nurse reported caring for seven patients at a time. “It’s unheard of,” Pelc said. “You can’t take care of seven patients at one time.”

The employer said it has contingency plans in “the unfortunate event of a strike.”

In a previous statement, Maui Health committed to providing “the best possible care for our patients.”

During the strike, Maui Health hospitals, emergency departments and clinics remain open and operating as usual, Maui Health said.

“The union’s planned strike does not change our commitment to care, and we will be well-prepared for the possibility of a disruption caused by union activities,” Maui Health said previously.

The union represents 900 Maui Health employees on Maui and Lāna‘i. Union members include registered nurses, social workers, physical and occupational therapists, speech/language pathologists, MRI, imaging, and mammography technicians, financial counselors, admitting clerks, receptionists, and others.