Nurses staging 1-day strike at 12 hospitals in 3 states

Registered nurses are staging a one-day strike against Tenet Health hospitals in Florida, California and Arizona to demand higher wages and better working conditions.

Some 6,500 members of National Nurses United planned their walk out at 12 Tenet facilities today after working without a contract for two years in Arizona and under expired contracts for months in California and Florida. They plan to resume working tomorrow.

The union says its focus is on decreasing patient-to-nurse ratios. For example, the union says Tenet assigns eight patients per nurse in Palmetto's surgical unit, double the level the union says research recommends.

Tenet issued a statement saying it's disappointed but patients will be cared for by replacement nurses. The Dallas-based company has 65 hospitals and 115,000 employees nationwide.