UMC sues state Nursing Board in privacy dispute

Grace Leong

Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2000 | 11:24 a.m.

University Medical Center is suing to stop the Nevada State Board of Nursing from ordering the hospital to release a list of UMC nurses to a local labor attorney, a move the hospital says would violate its staff's privacy rights.

In a Clark County District Court lawsuit filed this week, the Las Vegas hospital said it provided a personnel list to the state licensing board on the premise UMC staff would be informed of educational opportunities. But UMC contends the board then erred by declaring the list public information and by agreeing on Sept. 7 to release a copy to the attorney, Jeffrey Fisher, without the hospital's consent.

The list that was provided to Fisher contains the names, place of employment, license type and expiration dates of all registered UMC nurses. Fisher, who said the list excluded the nurses' home addresses, said he believes only registered nurses are affected.

Fisher, who wasn't named in UMC's suit but nonetheless disputed its claims, said he needed the list because he plans to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of several foreign-born Asian UMC nurses who claimed they were paid less than their American-born counterparts. Fisher, who has one client currently, said the class could involve up to 175 nurses.

He said the majority of the potential plaintiffs are foreign-born Filipinos, who he said make up 20-25 percent of UMC's staff, while the rest are immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka.

"We're trying to figure out what the UMC's turnover rate is, and to determine the scope of the lawsuit in terms of how many people are potentially involved in the class, as well as the potential front and back pay," he said. "We already have the third-quarter 1998 list, which has information on around 1,278 registered nurses. What we want now is the third-quarter 2000 list."

Kathy Apple, the board's executive director, also disputed the allegations of the Clark County-owned hospital.

"The board had never before received a public request for personnel lists. The law is silent on whether such information is public or private. That's why the board had to review his request and we found after consulting the Attorney General's office that public records law says the list is public information."

David Mortensen, UMC's attorney, disagreed.

"The board's reasoning is flawed. We contend the staff's privacy and safety concerns are paramount, and their information should therefore be protected."

Fisher said he had employment records, statements from former employees of UMC's nurse recruitment office to prove UMC has a "long-standing systemic practice of discriminating against foreign-born nurses."

"At issue is where you start out," he said. "The UMC historically has had a dual payscale for foreign-born nurses. Filipino nurses, for example, who have had four years of experience in the Philippines would be given a salary the equivalent of only two years of American experience."

Typically, Filipino nurses were paid a starting salary that is five to 10 percent less than their American-born counterparts, he said. "In 1991, one Filipino nurse got 22 percent less than what American nurses were getting."

But Dale Pugh, UMC's spokesman, disputed Fisher's claims of discrimination.

"We flatly deny that we discriminate against foreign-born nurses. We have policies in place that address concerns of employee discrimination and to have those fairly and impartially investigated."

"We have a very aggressive policy here at the UMC to deal with employees' concerns of discrimination. We have one of the most advanced cultural diversity programs in the nation that involve many of our employees from different nationalities and ethnic groups."

Fisher disagreed.

"There's a tendency to look down on Asian immigrant nurses here. Since the mid-80s, the UMC has had a policy of paying Filipino nurses less than their American-born nurses. The UMC got caught in 1991. When threatened with a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the UMC agreed to raise the pay of the adversely affected nurses." "Nevada is 25 years behind the times when it comes to equal employment opportunity," Fisher said. "In 1975, when I was a union officer with the local 660 of the Service Employees International Union in California, we saw reports of the same type of discrimination against the Filipinos and other immigrant nurses from the Pacific Rim. But we put an end to that with union grievance procedures. In Nevada, we only began seeing reports of such cases in the last 10 years."