LOS ANGELES — Some 1,800 nurses at the University of Southern California’s Keck Hospital and Norris Cancer Center and Hospital, members of the California Nurses Association, staged a one-day strike Oct. 30 to demand a new contract. “When USC squeezes its own health care system, patients pay the price,” the flyer they distributed said. “When nurses speak up, we protect our patients and our community.”
Allysha Shin, a member of the bargaining team at Keck and board member of the union, told the Militant that negotiations for a new contract began in April. The contract expired June 30. She said key issues include “improved language for resources and hours so we can take meals and rest.”
“There have been 20,000 meals and breaks missed since 2024,” Shin added.
Rudy Cuellar, chief nurse representative for Keck, said, “We’re most prone to make mistakes if we don’t take breaks. They took away free health care for our families in the last contract. We’re trying to get it back.”
Some 3,100 nurses at six Tenet hospitals in California also went out on strike the same day, protesting chronic short staffing, inadequate rest and meal breaks and to protect their jobs.
Over 30,000 nurses and health care professionals represented by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals carried out a five-day strike at 500 facilities in California, Hawaii and Oregon earlier in October.
Laura Garza, Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, joined the strikers at USC to show her solidarity. Garza, a railroad worker, pledged to build support for the nurses among her co-workers and in SMART-TD, her union.