ValleyCare Prepares for 1-Day Strike at Northside
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Northside Medical Center will maintain services without interruption and "high-quality care" throughout a one-day strike planned for tomorrow at Northside Medical Center, ValleyCare Health System of Ohio said this morning.
In the company's statement, issued by Trish Hrina, ValleyCare’s vice president of marketing and public relations, Northside reported it received written notice of the Ohio Nurses Association’s intention to commence a strike and picketing, beginning at 7 a.m. Tuesday. ValleyCare, a subsidiary of Tennessee-based Communty Health System Inc., said Northside would remain open with all emergency services, inpatient units, and outpatient departments staffed and available for patient care, and that surgeries and diagnostic procedures will continue as scheduled. Replacement nurses have been secured through a staffing agency to fill in for the striking nurses.
“The temporary nurses will work with employees who are not represented by the ONA and any nurses who choose to cross the picket line,” ValleyCare said. It also advised that while a “peaceful demonstration” is expected, the company has “taken the precaution of engaging additional security to assist during the strike and picketing.”
Over the weekend, ONA members were preparing signs for the Tuesday picketing. Eric Williams, president of the Youngstown General Duty Nurses Association, the ONA affiliate that represents registered nurses at Northside, told WFMJ-TV that the contract CHS has offered his members takes away nurses’ ability to advocate for patient care and said nurses have a right to adequate staffing.
Williams explained the contract CHS has offered is “vastly different” from what other bargaining units received. CHS has proposed an eight-month contract while other unions have three-year pacts in place.
Signs prepared over the weekend also charge that the replacement nurses will be paid travel and living expenses, and will receive $55 per hour and $85 for overtime.
Northside said it has offered ONA members a contract with wage increases, comprehensive benefits and flexible model staffing terms mirroring those overwhelmingly ratified by the five other ValleyCare bargaining units, including another nursing unit represented by ONA.
“The O.N.A. has objected to any provisions in a new contract that would allow the hospital to flex staffing to census. This opposition ignores the standard practice in all hospitals to effectively manage operations through appropriate staff scheduling,” Northside said in the statement. It proposed the eight-month contract to provide an increase in base pay “while giving both parties a break from negotiations.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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