May 21, 2025 • 13 mins
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – The latest on the MemorialCare Miller Children's & Women's Hospital Long Beach Nurses Strike with Amy Wolk, BSN, RN, Certified Diabetes Care and Education - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
JFI. It's Later with mo Kelly.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app. Let's
talk to registered nurse Amy Wolke, who is at Miller
Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach as we talk
about the forthcoming strike, the one day strike, which is
coming up on Thursday, May twenty second. Amy, how are
you this evening.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
I'm doing well. How are you, Mo?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm doing fine, And I want to add that you're
also on the bargaining team, so you will literally be
sitting at the table. This is presuming that management comes
to the table. I spoke to one of your colleagues
about a week or so ago, and at that point
management had not made any overtures that they were ready
to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Has anything changed, No.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Nothing has changed, and if anything, it's just got and
I guess a lot more stressful in the hospital setting.
Not only am I on the bargaining team, but I'm
also one of the nurses that was laid off in
the outpatient specialty clinic that we call the village, the
(01:15):
Children's Village, So I'm wearing a couple of different hats.
Right now, I'm trying to support my nurses and I'm
also trying to support myself through this hard time.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
How many I'm sorry jump in there, but how many
people were laid off in this most recent round of
medical staff being laid off?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
We had about seventy nurses laid off. Fifty five nurses
in the outpatient setting. In the specialty center where we
take care of kids with all kinds of special needs
chronic health conditions, forty seven out of sixty nine of
our nurses were laid out. That's seventy percent of our nurses.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Would you have that much of a loss of staff,
How does that translate to patient care?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Where does that impact you.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Personally? I think it's going to really impact patient care.
A lot of our nurses out in the outpatient center.
We had a meeting today and some of those nurses
have been nursing for thirty years, some of them twenty years.
And in the outpatient setting, a lot of us, like
I'm one of the new beasts and I've been there
eight years. So it's been a place where we have
(02:33):
brought our skill and our love for these kids to
keep them safe and to keep them healthy, and by
taking us out of the village, we feel that it
is not going to be a safe place for these
(02:55):
kids right now. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
What are nurses at Long Beach Medical Center asking for
in this hopefully eventual negotiation.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
What are we asking for? We are asking for all
kinds of things. We're asking to address our concerns about staffing,
about workplace violence, and recruitment and retention. We have situations
where our nurses and some of our units, like the
(03:26):
NICK you that's the Neonatal Intensive Care unit, the intensive
care unit, and in the er. These nurses all work
twelve hour shifts, but sometimes they don't get breaks, and
sometimes they're asked to work another four hours. Now, think
about that, trying to care for sick patients and you're
trying to do that over a sixteen hour period. So
(03:47):
we are really concerned first of all for our nurses
and their safety, but also for our patient safety.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Beyond the patient safety, I understand that management is going
to be bringing in other nurses for this one day
strike to cover the staff who will be striking.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
How does that play out? Is that even feasible.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
That they can take care of our patients correct well,
I'm sure that they will be able to take care
of them. Will they be able to do as good
of a job as we do? No, And we we
feel you know, the hospital's response. You know, first of all,
we gave the strike notice, and we gave it a
day before our last bargaining day with the hopes that
(04:33):
they were going to come to the table and give
us a you know, some some things that we could
actually look at, that we could talk about, because we
haven't felt like there's been a good conversation going back
and forth in terms of these proposals. So this one
day strike, we did that because we wanted to take
(04:54):
care of our patients. And you know, locking us out
for five days mendous cost to the medical center and
to the community. You know, they signed the contract to
replace us for five days. That's millions of dollars that
they could have put back into the hospital and put
(05:14):
into you know, safety. You know, we're we're asking we
have we have issues with workplace violence, and we've asked
for you know, metal detectors or and you know, they said, well, yeah,
we'll get that for you. But now they're saying we can't.
(05:36):
You know, maybe they're not going to do that right away,
the way that they were going to the nurses in
the outpatient setting were offered a severance package, they're now
saying that they're not going to give us that severage
severance package because it's costing them money to bring those
other nurses in. So we're upset.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Beyond being upset, I as an outsider, am looking at
this from thirty thousand feet up, as they say, and
I see that there is a management component who doesn't
seem willing to come to the bargaining table and is
okay with going through or enduring this quote unquote one
day strike, even though it may be over five days
that you've been locked out. If we are to assume
(06:16):
that management is going to hold their stance and not
come to the bargaining table at least in the near future,
does that mean that your union will then possibly call
for a longer strike in the future.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
We're gonna take one day to time here, We're going
to get through this strike. We're gonna get back and
take care of our patients and you know, and then
we will discuss next steps. Right now, we're not there.
We want to focus on the present and just getting
through the next few days.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Amy, can I get you to hold on for a moment.
I'd love to carry over our conversation into the next segment.
Can you do that for me?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Joining me right now on the line is registered nurse
Amy Woke. She is at Miller Children and Women's Hospital,
formerly at Long Beach Medical Center. We're talking about the
upcoming forthcoming strike, the one day strike on Thursday, May
twenty second of nurses who have also been locked out
for five days by management. We're going to talk about
(07:18):
what is going to happen during the strike and what
is going to happen possibly moving forward.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
We'll have more in just a moment. It's Later with
mo Kelly.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
With We're live everywhere on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app,
and if you just tuning in, I'm right in the
middle of a conversation with registered nurse Amy Woke, who
(07:58):
works at Miller Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach,
but she's also on the bargaining team for Long Beach
Medical Center nurses who are going to go on a
one day strike on Thursday, May twenty second, but they've
also been locked out by management over the course of
five days. And Amy, let me bring you back into
the conversation. We talked about what has been leading up
(08:20):
to this moment, how management from where you said, has
not been responsive to your requests, your demands, or even
the desire to negotiate. And I was asking you about
what the future may hold, and you're trying to take
this one step at a time. But at the beginning
of our conversation, I talked about how there were a
number of nurses and staff which was laid off. I
(08:44):
just want to make sure that I have my information
correct that there was no management who was laid off.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
It was just frontline nurses. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Yeah, that's my understanding it. You know, there were a
couple of respiratory therapists. I think that we're also laid off,
and a few other people within the hospital, but no
high management at all, no management at all. Yeah, And
(09:14):
you know, the whole thing about the strike is interesting.
You know, they keep saying that we're in the hole
in terms of money, yet they're willing to spend four
days extra on a lockout, which is costing millions of dollars,
which again that they could have put back into the contracts,
(09:34):
back into nursing care. It's like they really need to
get rid of the seventy eight nurses if they can
put this amount of money into bringing in outside nurses.
From what there's a disconnect.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
From what you understand. This is just a cost cutting measure.
They're trying to get rid of staff. They're trying to
make sure that you did not get raises. What has
management said about any of this up until this point
as far as the why.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
The why is basically the concern for medical cruts. They're
coming and we're also seeing the hospitals nationwide are not
being reimbursed as much. So, but I think, you know there,
I think there's more to it, and I just can't
put my finger on it, but I you know, it's
(10:25):
just very frustrating when we're sitting across the table and
the hospital keeps you know, what they want to focus
on is taking our rights as nurses away, trying to
take our union away from us, and not focusing on
the bigger problems.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You say, you say, take your union away.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You think that they're actively trying to bust the union altogether.
It's bigger than this one particular negotiation.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yes, yes, I think you know. They're looking at trying
to prevent our union reps from coming into the hospital.
They don't want nurse reps to come into the hospital.
It's called loitering. They want to make it so that
we have to go through what's called mandatory arbitration, which
means that if we get hurt in the hospital, they
(11:13):
want us to go to their lawyers to have them
figure it out, instead of us being able to hire
our own lawyer. And the way I see it is
there's a lack of respect for nursing in the hospital.
We are considered units of service. That was a term
that was used across the table, that we are units
(11:35):
of service. So they're looking at us in terms of
widgets or in terms of a business model. Healthcare should
not be a business model. Healthcare should be available to
anybody and everybody. And in this time, our healthcare system
is turning into a sick care model. When we wipe
(11:55):
out the nurses in the specialty center where we're taking
care of kids with chronic health conditions, having them live
to the best of their ability, and then you take
those nurses away, those kids are going to end up
back in the hospital. So what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Amy?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
My time is running out with you, but I want
you to put it in as stark terms as possible.
If an agreement is not reached in the near future
between the nurses of Long Beach Medical Center and management,
what does that mean for patients?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
What does that mean for medical care bigger picture?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Because I assume whatever happens in Long Beach Medical Center
could probably happen at any other hospital.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Well, I think you know again, I want to focus
on what's happening now. I can't look too far out
into the future. I want to focus on what we
can possibly do now. And we do have hope that
the hospital will come back to the table after the
strike and that you know, safe staffing is key for
(12:59):
taking care of our patients and for attracting and retaining
staff nurses, So you know, they need to invest in
us and hopefully they'll bring some of us back.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It's later with mo Kelly. Thanks so much, Amy Woke
for coming on.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
She is a nurse at Miller Children and Women's Hospital
in Long Beach. We will continue to follow that story
it's Later with Mo Kelly KFI AM six forty. We're
live on YouTube, we're live on Instagram, we're live on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
You're listening to Later with Mo Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
JFI. It's Later with mo Kelly.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app. Let's
talk to registered nurse Amy Wolke, who is at Miller
Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach as we talk
about the forthcoming strike, the one day strike, which is
coming up on Thursday, May twenty second. Amy, how are
you this evening.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
I'm doing well. How are you, Mo?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I'm doing fine, And I want to add that you're
also on the bargaining team, so you will literally be
sitting at the table. This is presuming that management comes
to the table. I spoke to one of your colleagues
about a week or so ago, and at that point
management had not made any overtures that they were ready
to negotiate.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Has anything changed, No.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Nothing has changed, and if anything, it's just got and
I guess a lot more stressful in the hospital setting.
Not only am I on the bargaining team, but I'm
also one of the nurses that was laid off in
the outpatient specialty clinic that we call the village, the
(01:15):
Children's Village, So I'm wearing a couple of different hats.
Right now, I'm trying to support my nurses and I'm
also trying to support myself through this hard time.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
How many I'm sorry jump in there, but how many
people were laid off in this most recent round of
medical staff being laid off?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
We had about seventy nurses laid off. Fifty five nurses
in the outpatient setting. In the specialty center where we
take care of kids with all kinds of special needs
chronic health conditions, forty seven out of sixty nine of
our nurses were laid out. That's seventy percent of our nurses.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Would you have that much of a loss of staff,
How does that translate to patient care?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Where does that impact you.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Personally? I think it's going to really impact patient care.
A lot of our nurses out in the outpatient center.
We had a meeting today and some of those nurses
have been nursing for thirty years, some of them twenty years.
And in the outpatient setting, a lot of us, like
I'm one of the new beasts and I've been there
eight years. So it's been a place where we have
(02:33):
brought our skill and our love for these kids to
keep them safe and to keep them healthy, and by
taking us out of the village, we feel that it
is not going to be a safe place for these
(02:55):
kids right now. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
What are nurses at Long Beach Medical Center asking for
in this hopefully eventual negotiation.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
What are we asking for? We are asking for all
kinds of things. We're asking to address our concerns about staffing,
about workplace violence, and recruitment and retention. We have situations
where our nurses and some of our units, like the
(03:26):
NICK you that's the Neonatal Intensive Care unit, the intensive
care unit, and in the er. These nurses all work
twelve hour shifts, but sometimes they don't get breaks, and
sometimes they're asked to work another four hours. Now, think
about that, trying to care for sick patients and you're
trying to do that over a sixteen hour period. So
(03:47):
we are really concerned first of all for our nurses
and their safety, but also for our patient safety.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Beyond the patient safety, I understand that management is going
to be bringing in other nurses for this one day
strike to cover the staff who will be striking.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
How does that play out? Is that even feasible.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
That they can take care of our patients correct well,
I'm sure that they will be able to take care
of them. Will they be able to do as good
of a job as we do? No, And we we
feel you know, the hospital's response. You know, first of all,
we gave the strike notice, and we gave it a
day before our last bargaining day with the hopes that
(04:33):
they were going to come to the table and give
us a you know, some some things that we could
actually look at, that we could talk about, because we
haven't felt like there's been a good conversation going back
and forth in terms of these proposals. So this one
day strike, we did that because we wanted to take
(04:54):
care of our patients. And you know, locking us out
for five days mendous cost to the medical center and
to the community. You know, they signed the contract to
replace us for five days. That's millions of dollars that
they could have put back into the hospital and put
(05:14):
into you know, safety. You know, we're we're asking we
have we have issues with workplace violence, and we've asked
for you know, metal detectors or and you know, they said, well, yeah,
we'll get that for you. But now they're saying we can't.
(05:36):
You know, maybe they're not going to do that right away,
the way that they were going to the nurses in
the outpatient setting were offered a severance package, they're now
saying that they're not going to give us that severage
severance package because it's costing them money to bring those
other nurses in. So we're upset.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Beyond being upset, I as an outsider, am looking at
this from thirty thousand feet up, as they say, and
I see that there is a management component who doesn't
seem willing to come to the bargaining table and is
okay with going through or enduring this quote unquote one
day strike, even though it may be over five days
that you've been locked out. If we are to assume
(06:16):
that management is going to hold their stance and not
come to the bargaining table at least in the near future,
does that mean that your union will then possibly call
for a longer strike in the future.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
We're gonna take one day to time here, We're going
to get through this strike. We're gonna get back and
take care of our patients and you know, and then
we will discuss next steps. Right now, we're not there.
We want to focus on the present and just getting
through the next few days.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Amy, can I get you to hold on for a moment.
I'd love to carry over our conversation into the next segment.
Can you do that for me?
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Joining me right now on the line is registered nurse
Amy Woke. She is at Miller Children and Women's Hospital,
formerly at Long Beach Medical Center. We're talking about the
upcoming forthcoming strike, the one day strike on Thursday, May
twenty second of nurses who have also been locked out
for five days by management. We're going to talk about
(07:18):
what is going to happen during the strike and what
is going to happen possibly moving forward.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
We'll have more in just a moment. It's Later with
mo Kelly.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
We're live on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
You're listening to Later with mo Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
With We're live everywhere on YouTube, Instagram, and the iHeartRadio app,
and if you just tuning in, I'm right in the
middle of a conversation with registered nurse Amy Woke, who
(07:58):
works at Miller Children and Women's Hospital in Long Beach,
but she's also on the bargaining team for Long Beach
Medical Center nurses who are going to go on a
one day strike on Thursday, May twenty second, but they've
also been locked out by management over the course of
five days. And Amy, let me bring you back into
the conversation. We talked about what has been leading up
(08:20):
to this moment, how management from where you said, has
not been responsive to your requests, your demands, or even
the desire to negotiate. And I was asking you about
what the future may hold, and you're trying to take
this one step at a time. But at the beginning
of our conversation, I talked about how there were a
number of nurses and staff which was laid off. I
(08:44):
just want to make sure that I have my information
correct that there was no management who was laid off.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
It was just frontline nurses. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Yeah, that's my understanding it. You know, there were a
couple of respiratory therapists. I think that we're also laid off,
and a few other people within the hospital, but no
high management at all, no management at all. Yeah, And
(09:14):
you know, the whole thing about the strike is interesting.
You know, they keep saying that we're in the hole
in terms of money, yet they're willing to spend four
days extra on a lockout, which is costing millions of dollars,
which again that they could have put back into the contracts,
(09:34):
back into nursing care. It's like they really need to
get rid of the seventy eight nurses if they can
put this amount of money into bringing in outside nurses.
From what there's a disconnect.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
From what you understand. This is just a cost cutting measure.
They're trying to get rid of staff. They're trying to
make sure that you did not get raises. What has
management said about any of this up until this point
as far as the why.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
The why is basically the concern for medical cruts. They're
coming and we're also seeing the hospitals nationwide are not
being reimbursed as much. So, but I think, you know there,
I think there's more to it, and I just can't
put my finger on it, but I you know, it's
(10:25):
just very frustrating when we're sitting across the table and
the hospital keeps you know, what they want to focus
on is taking our rights as nurses away, trying to
take our union away from us, and not focusing on
the bigger problems.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You say, you say, take your union away.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You think that they're actively trying to bust the union altogether.
It's bigger than this one particular negotiation.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yes, yes, I think you know. They're looking at trying
to prevent our union reps from coming into the hospital.
They don't want nurse reps to come into the hospital.
It's called loitering. They want to make it so that
we have to go through what's called mandatory arbitration, which
means that if we get hurt in the hospital, they
(11:13):
want us to go to their lawyers to have them
figure it out, instead of us being able to hire
our own lawyer. And the way I see it is
there's a lack of respect for nursing in the hospital.
We are considered units of service. That was a term
that was used across the table, that we are units
(11:35):
of service. So they're looking at us in terms of
widgets or in terms of a business model. Healthcare should
not be a business model. Healthcare should be available to
anybody and everybody. And in this time, our healthcare system
is turning into a sick care model. When we wipe
(11:55):
out the nurses in the specialty center where we're taking
care of kids with chronic health conditions, having them live
to the best of their ability, and then you take
those nurses away, those kids are going to end up
back in the hospital. So what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Amy?
Speaker 3 (12:13):
My time is running out with you, but I want
you to put it in as stark terms as possible.
If an agreement is not reached in the near future
between the nurses of Long Beach Medical Center and management,
what does that mean for patients?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
What does that mean for medical care bigger picture?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Because I assume whatever happens in Long Beach Medical Center
could probably happen at any other hospital.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Well, I think you know again, I want to focus
on what's happening now. I can't look too far out
into the future. I want to focus on what we
can possibly do now. And we do have hope that
the hospital will come back to the table after the
strike and that you know, safe staffing is key for
(12:59):
taking care of our patients and for attracting and retaining
staff nurses, So you know, they need to invest in
us and hopefully they'll bring some of us back.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
It's later with mo Kelly. Thanks so much, Amy Woke
for coming on.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
She is a nurse at Miller Children and Women's Hospital
in Long Beach. We will continue to follow that story
it's Later with Mo Kelly KFI AM six forty. We're
live on YouTube, we're live on Instagram, we're live on
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM six forty
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