Nurses Picket Northside over Contract Negotiations
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The final official day of winter – at least by the calendar's reckoning – made for a bitter-cold walk up and down the sidewalk along Gypsy Lane in front of Northside Medical Center, not unlike the cold shoulder registered nurses argue they are getting from the company that owns the hospital.
About two dozen registered nurses and their supporters endured the subfreezing temperatures and wind late Tuesday morning as part of the nationwide picketing of Community Health Systems Inc.'s union-organized facilities. Northside is part of ValleyCare Health System of Ohio, which CHS formed in 2010 after buying the assets of the former Forum Health.
The informational picketing was the first action taken since ONA voted Friday to merge with the American Federation of Teachers. The picketing, which took place at the 18 organized CHS facilities, sought to call attention to the negotiations between the Ohio Nurses Association chapter at Northside and CHS.
Registered nurses at Northside have been without a new contract since July, said Eric Williams, president of the Youngstown General Duty Nurses Association, the ONA chapter that represents Northside’s 450 RNs.
"While they put out memos internally for our people saying the nurses should not be out here picketing, they should spend the time at the table. We want nothing more than that," Williams said. “We’re available 24/7 to negotiate a contract. CHS comes to the table for a limited time one a month or every other month and they’re very quick to exit.”
The effort Tuesday was part of a campaign, including television ads and a website, launched by the unions charging that CHS is putting profits above patient care. A leaflet distributed Tuesday claimed that the Northside nurses “are the target of a union-busting campaign” and that CHS is ignoring nurses’ needs, wants to mandate overtime for nurses and is eliminating jobs while executives receive “record-high salaries.”
In a statement issued in response to the picketing, Trish Hrina, ValleyCare director of marketing, said Northside was “operating as usual” and that the “care and safety” of its patients, employees and visitors is the “top priority” of the hospital. “All inpatient, outpatient and emergency services are available and all surgeries and diagnostic procedures are continuing as scheduled,” she said. She also pointed out that some of the two dozen picketers were not employees of the hospital, which has about 1,100 employees total.
Williams said he wished CHS would “come to the table and negotiate in good terms and good faith” with the bargaining unit. “They say they negotiate but they don’t. They don’t respond to our needs, our wishes or our concerns.” Nurses at Northside have gone seven years without a raise, he said, noting that the hospital’s then-owner, Forum Health, was operating under bankruptcy for part of that time. “It’s time that they recognized the needs of the nurses here. We have a lot of needs,” he said.
Northside “used to be one of the premier medical centers in town,” said Mary Beth Potts of Austintown, an RN there for 29 years. “I was very hopeful when CHS purchased us that we would just be able to rebuild and come back and give the kind of care that we know they can help us provide,” she remarked. Instead, the “bottom dollar seems to be what they’re interested in,” she lamented. “I understand that figures into it but not at the expense of patient care,” which has “gone by the wayside.”
Potts said she wants the tools -- and the staffing -- to take care of patients. “Give me the right amount of hands to do the patient care. Give me the ancillary staff I need to do this. Give me the services open 24 hours a day to do this … a pharmacy that can get pills to me on time and medications started when ordered,” she said. “Give me the tools that I need to give the best care that I can.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.