Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: JFI. It's Later with mo Kelly.
Speaker 3: We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app. Let's
Speaker 3: talk to registered nurse Amy Wolke, who is at Miller
Speaker 3: Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach as we talk
Speaker 3: about the forthcoming strike, the one day strike, which is
Speaker 3: coming up on Thursday, May twenty second. Amy, how are
Speaker 3: you this evening.
Speaker 4: I'm doing well. How are you, Mo?
Speaker 3: I'm doing fine, And I want to add that you're
Speaker 3: also on the bargaining team, so you will literally be
Speaker 3: sitting at the table. This is presuming that management comes
Speaker 3: to the table. I spoke to one of your colleagues
Speaker 3: about a week or so ago, and at that point
Speaker 3: management had not made any overtures that they were ready
Speaker 3: to negotiate.
Speaker 2: Has anything changed, No.
Speaker 4: Nothing has changed, and if anything, it's just got and
Speaker 4: I guess a lot more stressful in the hospital setting.
Speaker 4: Not only am I on the bargaining team, but I'm
Speaker 4: also one of the nurses that was laid off in
Speaker 4: the outpatient specialty clinic that we call the village, the
Speaker 4: Children's Village, So I'm wearing a couple of different hats.
Speaker 4: Right now, I'm trying to support my nurses and I'm
Speaker 4: also trying to support myself through this hard time.
Speaker 3: How many I'm sorry jump in there, but how many
Speaker 3: people were laid off in this most recent round of
Speaker 3: medical staff being laid off?
Speaker 4: We had about seventy nurses laid off. Fifty five nurses
Speaker 4: in the outpatient setting. In the specialty center where we
Speaker 4: take care of kids with all kinds of special needs
Speaker 4: chronic health conditions, forty seven out of sixty nine of
Speaker 4: our nurses were laid out. That's seventy percent of our nurses.
Speaker 3: Would you have that much of a loss of staff,
Speaker 3: How does that translate to patient care?
Speaker 2: Where does that impact you.
Speaker 4: Personally? I think it's going to really impact patient care.
Speaker 4: A lot of our nurses out in the outpatient center.
Speaker 4: We had a meeting today and some of those nurses
Speaker 4: have been nursing for thirty years, some of them twenty years.
Speaker 4: And in the outpatient setting, a lot of us, like
Speaker 4: I'm one of the new beasts and I've been there
Speaker 4: eight years. So it's been a place where we have
Speaker 4: brought our skill and our love for these kids to
Speaker 4: keep them safe and to keep them healthy, and by
Speaker 4: taking us out of the village, we feel that it
Speaker 4: is not going to be a safe place for these
Speaker 4: kids right now. Anyway.
Speaker 3: What are nurses at Long Beach Medical Center asking for
Speaker 3: in this hopefully eventual negotiation.
Speaker 4: What are we asking for? We are asking for all
Speaker 4: kinds of things. We're asking to address our concerns about staffing,
Speaker 4: about workplace violence, and recruitment and retention. We have situations
Speaker 4: where our nurses and some of our units, like the
Speaker 4: NICK you that's the Neonatal Intensive Care unit, the intensive
Speaker 4: care unit, and in the er. These nurses all work
Speaker 4: twelve hour shifts, but sometimes they don't get breaks, and
Speaker 4: sometimes they're asked to work another four hours. Now, think
Speaker 4: about that, trying to care for sick patients and you're
Speaker 4: trying to do that over a sixteen hour period. So
Speaker 4: we are really concerned first of all for our nurses
Speaker 4: and their safety, but also for our patient safety.
Speaker 3: Beyond the patient safety, I understand that management is going
Speaker 3: to be bringing in other nurses for this one day
Speaker 3: strike to cover the staff who will be striking.
Speaker 2: How does that play out? Is that even feasible.
Speaker 4: That they can take care of our patients correct well,
Speaker 4: I'm sure that they will be able to take care
Speaker 4: of them. Will they be able to do as good
Speaker 4: of a job as we do? No, And we we
Speaker 4: feel you know, the hospital's response. You know, first of all,
Speaker 4: we gave the strike notice, and we gave it a
Speaker 4: day before our last bargaining day with the hopes that
Speaker 4: they were going to come to the table and give
Speaker 4: us a you know, some some things that we could
Speaker 4: actually look at, that we could talk about, because we
Speaker 4: haven't felt like there's been a good conversation going back
Speaker 4: and forth in terms of these proposals. So this one
Speaker 4: day strike, we did that because we wanted to take
Speaker 4: care of our patients. And you know, locking us out
Speaker 4: for five days mendous cost to the medical center and
Speaker 4: to the community. You know, they signed the contract to
Speaker 4: replace us for five days. That's millions of dollars that
Speaker 4: they could have put back into the hospital and put
Speaker 4: into you know, safety. You know, we're we're asking we
Speaker 4: have we have issues with workplace violence, and we've asked
Speaker 4: for you know, metal detectors or and you know, they said, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: we'll get that for you. But now they're saying we can't.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe they're not going to do that right away,
Speaker 4: the way that they were going to the nurses in
Speaker 4: the outpatient setting were offered a severance package, they're now
Speaker 4: saying that they're not going to give us that severage
Speaker 4: severance package because it's costing them money to bring those
Speaker 4: other nurses in. So we're upset.
Speaker 3: Beyond being upset, I as an outsider, am looking at
Speaker 3: this from thirty thousand feet up, as they say, and
Speaker 3: I see that there is a management component who doesn't
Speaker 3: seem willing to come to the bargaining table and is
Speaker 3: okay with going through or enduring this quote unquote one
Speaker 3: day strike, even though it may be over five days
Speaker 3: that you've been locked out. If we are to assume
Speaker 3: that management is going to hold their stance and not
Speaker 3: come to the bargaining table at least in the near future,
Speaker 3: does that mean that your union will then possibly call
Speaker 3: for a longer strike in the future.
Speaker 4: We're gonna take one day to time here, We're going
Speaker 4: to get through this strike. We're gonna get back and
Speaker 4: take care of our patients and you know, and then
Speaker 4: we will discuss next steps. Right now, we're not there.
Speaker 4: We want to focus on the present and just getting
Speaker 4: through the next few days.
Speaker 3: Amy, can I get you to hold on for a moment.
Speaker 3: I'd love to carry over our conversation into the next segment.
Speaker 3: Can you do that for me?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: Joining me right now on the line is registered nurse
Speaker 3: Amy Woke. She is at Miller Children and Women's Hospital,
Speaker 3: formerly at Long Beach Medical Center. We're talking about the
Speaker 3: upcoming forthcoming strike, the one day strike on Thursday, May
Speaker 3: twenty second of nurses who have also been locked out
Speaker 3: for five days by management. We're going to talk about
Speaker 3: what is going to happen during the strike and what
Speaker 3: is going to happen possibly moving forward.
Speaker 2: We'll have more in just a moment. It's Later with
Speaker 2: mo Kelly.
Speaker 3: We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3: With We're live everywhere on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: and if you just tuning in, I'm right in the
Speaker 3: middle of a conversation with registered nurse Amy Woke, who
Speaker 3: works at Miller Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach,
Speaker 3: but she's also on the bargaining team for Long Beach
Speaker 3: Medical Center nurses who are going to go on a
Speaker 3: one day strike on Thursday, May twenty second, but they've
Speaker 3: also been locked out by management over the course of
Speaker 3: five days. And Amy, let me bring you back into
Speaker 3: the conversation. We talked about what has been leading up
Speaker 3: to this moment, how management from where you said, has
Speaker 3: not been responsive to your requests, your demands, or even
Speaker 3: the desire to negotiate. And I was asking you about
Speaker 3: what the future may hold, and you're trying to take
Speaker 3: this one step at a time. But at the beginning
Speaker 3: of our conversation, I talked about how there were a
Speaker 3: number of nurses and staff which was laid off. I
Speaker 3: just want to make sure that I have my information
Speaker 3: correct that there was no management who was laid off.
Speaker 2: It was just frontline nurses. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's my understanding it. You know, there were a
Speaker 4: couple of respiratory therapists. I think that we're also laid off,
Speaker 4: and a few other people within the hospital, but no
Speaker 4: high management at all, no management at all. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: you know, the whole thing about the strike is interesting.
Speaker 4: You know, they keep saying that we're in the hole
Speaker 4: in terms of money, yet they're willing to spend four
Speaker 4: days extra on a lockout, which is costing millions of dollars,
Speaker 4: which again that they could have put back into the contracts,
Speaker 4: back into nursing care. It's like they really need to
Speaker 4: get rid of the seventy eight nurses if they can
Speaker 4: put this amount of money into bringing in outside nurses.
Speaker 4: From what there's a disconnect.
Speaker 3: From what you understand. This is just a cost cutting measure.
Speaker 3: They're trying to get rid of staff. They're trying to
Speaker 3: make sure that you did not get raises. What has
Speaker 3: management said about any of this up until this point
Speaker 3: as far as the why.
Speaker 4: The why is basically the concern for medical cruts. They're
Speaker 4: coming and we're also seeing the hospitals nationwide are not
Speaker 4: being reimbursed as much. So, but I think, you know there,
Speaker 4: I think there's more to it, and I just can't
Speaker 4: put my finger on it, but I you know, it's
Speaker 4: just very frustrating when we're sitting across the table and
Speaker 4: the hospital keeps you know, what they want to focus
Speaker 4: on is taking our rights as nurses away, trying to
Speaker 4: take our union away from us, and not focusing on
Speaker 4: the bigger problems.
Speaker 2: You say, you say, take your union away.
Speaker 3: You think that they're actively trying to bust the union altogether.
Speaker 3: It's bigger than this one particular negotiation.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I think you know. They're looking at trying
Speaker 4: to prevent our union reps from coming into the hospital.
Speaker 4: They don't want nurse reps to come into the hospital.
Speaker 4: It's called loitering. They want to make it so that
Speaker 4: we have to go through what's called mandatory arbitration, which
Speaker 4: means that if we get hurt in the hospital, they
Speaker 4: want us to go to their lawyers to have them
Speaker 4: figure it out, instead of us being able to hire
Speaker 4: our own lawyer. And the way I see it is
Speaker 4: there's a lack of respect for nursing in the hospital.
Speaker 4: We are considered units of service. That was a term
Speaker 4: that was used across the table, that we are units
Speaker 4: of service. So they're looking at us in terms of
Speaker 4: widgets or in terms of a business model. Healthcare should
Speaker 4: not be a business model. Healthcare should be available to
Speaker 4: anybody and everybody. And in this time, our healthcare system
Speaker 4: is turning into a sick care model. When we wipe
Speaker 4: out the nurses in the specialty center where we're taking
Speaker 4: care of kids with chronic health conditions, having them live
Speaker 4: to the best of their ability, and then you take
Speaker 4: those nurses away, those kids are going to end up
Speaker 4: back in the hospital. So what are we doing?
Speaker 2: Amy?
Speaker 3: My time is running out with you, but I want
Speaker 3: you to put it in as stark terms as possible.
Speaker 3: If an agreement is not reached in the near future
Speaker 3: between the nurses of Long Beach Medical Center and management,
Speaker 3: what does that mean for patients?
Speaker 2: What does that mean for medical care bigger picture?
Speaker 3: Because I assume whatever happens in Long Beach Medical Center
Speaker 3: could probably happen at any other hospital.
Speaker 4: Well, I think you know again, I want to focus
Speaker 4: on what's happening now. I can't look too far out
Speaker 4: into the future. I want to focus on what we
Speaker 4: can possibly do now. And we do have hope that
Speaker 4: the hospital will come back to the table after the
Speaker 4: strike and that you know, safe staffing is key for
Speaker 4: taking care of our patients and for attracting and retaining
Speaker 4: staff nurses, So you know, they need to invest in
Speaker 4: us and hopefully they'll bring some of us back.
Speaker 2: It's later with mo Kelly. Thanks so much, Amy Woke
Speaker 2: for coming on.
Speaker 3: She is a nurse at Miller Children and Women's Hospital
Speaker 3: in Long Beach. We will continue to follow that story
Speaker 3: it's Later with Mo Kelly KFI AM six forty. We're
Speaker 3: live on YouTube, we're live on Instagram, we're live on
Speaker 3: the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty