Registered nurses with the California Nurses Association will spend Monday lobbying state legislators in Sacramento for a slate of patient and worker safety bills the union says hospital systems have spent the spring opposing.
CNA announced the lobby day May 15. Members are expected from chapters across the state, including from Kaiser Permanente, Sutter, Dignity, and several University of California medical centers. The day’s agenda centers on bills tightening enforcement of California’s existing nurse-to-patient ratio law and expanding workplace-violence protections for hospital staff.
CNA leadership in its public statement framed the push as a response to “hospital industry greed,” citing a year of disputes over staffing and benefit cuts at multiple systems. The hospital industry’s lobbying arm, the California Hospital Association, has opposed several of the bills in committee testimony.
California became the first state to mandate minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in 2004. Enforcement has remained uneven, and CNA has spent recent legislative sessions pushing for stronger penalties and a state-funded compliance audit.
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