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Over 5,700 Sharp Health Care nurses started a three-day strike on November 26, 2025 in San Diego, CA. Here, nurses picket outside of Sharp Memorial Hospital. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nRegistered nurses at Sharp HealthCare began waving picket signs at 7 a.m. Wednesday that read \u201cOn strike for patient care and safety.\u201d By 9:30 a.m., a key Sharp executive, standing before television cameras, objected vigorously to that slogan, insisting that it leaves out the true motivation for this three-day work stoppage.<\/p>\n
Susan Stone, a registered nurse and Sharp\u2019s chief nursing executive, pushed back on any suggestion that the quality of patient care is an issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe received a 10-day strike notice citing unsafe staffing and patient safety concerns,\u201d Stone said. \u201cI want to be very clear: Sharp maintains safe, legally-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios across all of our hospitals and, oftentimes, exceeds those mandated ratios.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur organization is widely recognized as a destination of choice for nurses across the country with multiple magnet-designated hospitals of nursing excellences and decades of recognition for clinical excellence and patient safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over 5,700 Sharp Health Care nurses started a three-day strike on November 26, 2025 in San Diego, CA. Here, nurses picket outside of Sharp Memorial Hospital. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Represented by the United Nurses Associations of California\/Union of Health Care Professionals, 5,800 Sharp nurses plan to strike through Friday, returning to work at 7 a.m. on Saturday.<\/p>\n
While picket signs on display Wednesday do focus on patient care, there were plenty of hand-made signs calling for fair wages. And the union\u2019s written strike promotional materials cite safe staffing, sick policy and wages as the reasons for the strike.<\/p>\n
Stone said that Sharp has offered nurses what it considers meaningful raises that have thus far been rejected.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur proposal offers significant guaranteed pay increases totaling more than 16% over four years with nearly 10% in the first two years alone,\u201d Stone said.<\/p>\n
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RNs Kyle Casipit and wife Narisa were among the over 5,700 Sharp Health Care nurses that participated in a three-day strike on November 26, 2025 in San Diego, CA. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
She added that the bump would take the average registered nurse salary from $160,000 to $180,000 per year \u201cwith the most experienced nurses averaging an annual salary of $225,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alana Lawler, a registered nurse and chair of the Sharp bargaining unit, was surprised to hear those numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to see their math, because I have no idea where that would come from,\u201d Lawler said. \u201cI mean, I don\u2019t know, I\u2019ve been here 24 years, and I think I make that, or just maybe a few cents over that, but that\u2019s not our average nurse.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur average nurse is not a 20- or 24-year senior nurse.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also defended the union\u2019s use of patient care and safety language on the strike line.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything circles back to patient care if our wages aren\u2019t comparable to all other hospitals in the San Diego metro area,\u201d Lawler said. \u201cIf we have a retention crisis like we had in 2022 and we lose tons of nurses, that does create unsafe staffing, and that does create patient safety issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Over 5,700 Sharp Health Care nurses started a three-day strike on November 26. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Union members said that they have analyzed contracts in place at other major medical providers and have found Sharp\u2019s offer lacking.<\/p>\n
Pamela Chandran, the unit\u2019s chief negotiator and a union attorney, said that she does not know how the cited 16% raise mentioned at Sharp\u2019s news conference was derived.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what they have on the table,\u201d Chandran said. \u201cWhat we are countering with is something that gets us close to, but not even on parity with, UC (University of California) and Kaiser.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are losing nurses to those two places because they pay double-digit percentages higher at the mid- and senior career step. We are not asking them to close that gap, we understand that\u2019s a huge gap, but we\u2019re asking them to make it less distant.\u201d<\/p>\n