Hundreds of Riverside County Employees to Descend on Board of Supervisors to Sound the Alarm About Rampant ER Safety Breaches at County’s Flagship Hospital; Employee Picketing Over County’s Whopping 19 Labor Law Violations Enters Its 4th Week
In the wake of multiple violent assaults on Emergency Room nurses, calls by hospital employees to fix the safety breaches at Riverside County Regional Medical Center continue to go ignored by County leadership, who have instead spent over $140 million in taxpayer dollars on sweetheart consulting contracts and a toxic Wall Street swap deal; County’s 19 labor law violations include unlawful surveillance and harassment of hospital employees learning self-defense during break time and the inexplicable yanking of a Safety Proposal.
Riverside, CA— In response to increasingly dangerous working conditions that have been continually ignored by Riverside County management, Riverside County employees will take their case directly to the Board of Supervisors to demand an immediate fix to a worsening situation and condemn the County’s rampant labor law violations.
Out of fear that the increasingly violent attacks may lead to a death on the job, hospital employees brought their concerns to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors on March 21, 2017, demanding immediate safety fixes. Their action was a direct response to ER Registered Nurse Teri Lopez having her head violently slammed into the ground repeatedly by a patient, along with countless other incidents at the Hospital.
Just weeks after Lopez’s attack, hospital employees took matters into their own hands to learn self-defense during their personal time, only to be subject of County management’s surveillance — leading to the immediate filing of an “unfair practice” charge against the County. At the time, the charge was the 4th filed against the County since contract negotiations began over a year ago.
Fifteen more charges have been filed against the County since then, including charges for bad-faith bargaining, harassment, and for the County’s refusal to provide critical information on the County’s financial dealings. In the most recent turn of events, the County abruptly yanked their Joint Labor Management Safety Committee safety proposal without explanation, even as deadly weapons continue to be confiscated by nurses at the hospital.
Who: SEIU Local 721 Members, County Residents, and Community Advocates
What: Demand to Supervisors to Fix Safety Breaches and Picket Against County’s Unfair Practices
When: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 9 a.m.
Where: 4080 Lemon Street, Riverside, CA
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