Nurses at Sutter Health hospitals in San Leandro and Castro Valley joined an estimated 4,500 nurses in the Bay Area Tuesday in protest of contract disputes and limits on employee benefits.

Beginning as early as 7 a.m., with many groups striking a full 24 hours, according to the California Nurses Association (CNA), the day of action in the Bay Area joined both labor and Occupy demonstrations across the nation, creating a unified front of the 99 percent and hoping to strengthen their rally cry for greater economic rights for laborers in America.

The estimated 70 nurses at San Leandro Hospital and Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley joined organizers and supporters with pickets, chants, lively music and signs, striking along East 14th Avenue and Lake Chabot Road amongst honks from drivers and verbal support from local residents.

Bay Area nurses said the purpose of their strike was to get Sutter Health officials to reverse current proposals to cut nurses health plans, salary contracts, sick leave and more locally, to prevent Sutter from closing San Leandro Hospital’s emergency rooms.

“The worker is the one who is being compromised across all areas. We’re in a big worker compromise crisis statewide, all across the board, and unfortunately it’s the little people that have to suffer all the time,” said Sandra Alviso, a nurse for over 30 years while on strike in San Leandro Tuesday morning.

“I am entitled to a little bit more respect than Sutter is willing to offer the nurses,” she said.

Nurses went on strike Tuesday at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch, Mills-Peninsula Health Services hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo, Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo, Novato Community Hospital and Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport in addition to the San Leandro Hospital and Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley.

The CNA said Sutter has been paying many top executives over $1 million and made $4 billion in profits since 2007, and still have declined salary raises and benefits to their nurses. The nurses’ associations at many Bay Area hospitals have been in contract negotiations for over a year.

Sutter has publicly stated the requests made by the nurses’ associations would affect the patients, as double-digit wage increases and free health care would increase costs by “tens of millions of dollars.”

“Despite the generous pay and benefits we provide our nurses, the California Nurses Union demands new benefits that will increase the cost of health care for our patients,” said Sutter Health Tuesday morning on their “CNA Negotiations” blog.

Yet, many nurses at San Leandro and Castro Valley said they strongly disagreed.

“We want, number one, Sutter to back off, to remove their takeaways and to keep San Leandro hospital open for the welfare of this community and the entire county,” said Lisa Lafave, a nurse for over 21 years for Castro Valley’s Eden Medical Center.

“I feel it’s a personal assault on the way I do my job and the kind of care I’m able to provide,” said Lafave. “We have never in this country answered the question is healthcare a privilege or a right, and I believe very strongly it’s a right. I want to maintain my right to give the kind of quality care that I’ve been trained to give, that I want to give. Sutter gets in the way of that by undermining my ability to do my job.”

Sutter brought in replacement nurses for the Tuesday strike, as well as started planning for multiple future dates as in previous strikes, stating in their blog post since they do not believe it makes “financial sense” to increase the nurses salaries as “these multi-day contract requirements usually mean that striking nurses miss several days of work.”

In addition, Sutter has stated nurses at their local hospitals have received 20 percent pay increases already in the past three years, comparing their increases to “4 percent” for the “average Bay Area worker.”

Later that afternoon, the CNA held a meeting at the San Leandro Senior Community Center to mobilize support to prevent the closure of San Leandro hospital, of which Sutter recently secured ownership but has not yet disclosed their plans.

Closure, many nurses said, would be “a tremendous assault on the medical system care in this county.”

With health care a looming issue in America, and the ongoing Occupy movement creating thought and discussion over the power of corporations in the economy, East Bay nurses said their strike, if anything, shows their diligence and determination for their cause.

“The nurses have the persistence to pursue their goals. We are not going to be defeated now,” said Elena Ballock, a nurse for 35 years. “When people are ill, we are the ones who are there to take care of them.

“I am not only defending myself, but my right to take care of patients,” she said. “We are going to win this fight.”