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Nurses Ponder Next Step after Lockout at Northside
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The union representing registered nurses at Northside Medical Center plans to take Wednesday’s “selective lockout” to the National Labor Relations Board, the president of the union said Wednesday.
The Youngstown General Duty Nurses Association returned to Northside yesterday morning following a one-day strike to protest their treatment by the hospital, only for most of its member to receive letters stating they were not to return to work until dates that range from Friday until next week (READ STORY). Selected registered nurses, including but not limited to nurses scheduled off Tuesday, were permitted to enter the hospital to work.
The nurses have been working without a contract more than a year.
“Nurses who did not report to duty during the strike period will be returning at the conclusion of the 72-hour engagement of the temporary replacement nurses filling their vacated positions. We look forward to welcoming all of our nurses at that time,” Northside said in a statement Trisha Hrina issued Wednesday afternoon.
Hrina is vice president of marketing and public relations for ValleyCare Health Care System of Ohio. ValleyCare is an affiliate of Nashville-based Community Health Systems Inc.
Dates scheduled for the nurses to report for duty appeared to be tied to the work schedules of the individual nurses, said Eric Williams, YGDNA president. “Charges are going to be filed,” he said. “It’s going to come out of the wash at some point, however it’s going to come out.”
Neither Williams nor Nate Gunderson, an organizer with the American Federation of Teachers, which affiliated earlier this year with YGDNA’s parent union, the Ohio Nurses Association, knew that Northside had planned the lockout Tuesday night, both labor officials said.
Kelly Trautner, ONA deputy executive director, said she received an email late Tuesday from Robert J. Sincich, interim vice president, human resources and director of labor relations, for Northside.
Attached to the 11:07 p.m. email was a letter stating that “certain” registered nurses the ONA represents “have failed to report to work to perform their scheduled duties due to their participation in the strike-related activities you commenced at Northside [at 7 a.m. Tuesday].
“Please be advised that we have taken the requisite measures to engage qualified nurses to temporarily replace [the nurses] who failed to report to work,” Sincich wrote in the letter.
“Inasmuch as we must fulfill certain obligations we have relative to the engagement of the temporary replacement nurses,” Northside will correspond “with the registered nurses who have been temporarily replaced to inform them of the date and time at which they are to next report to work to resume the performance of their scheduled, assigned duties,” the letter continues.
Several of the nurses, upon learning they would not be permitted to work Wednesday, remained outside to continue their protest. They carried newly crafted picket signs, chanted slogans, sang and consoled one another. Several motorists honked their horns in support of the nurses, although one was observed flipping the bird at them.
The chants included variations of familiar songs and slogans. One went, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, CHS got a pot of gold.”
One nurse admitted to work was allowed to leave after becoming emotional. The nurse, who declined to be identified for attribution, said she went in with the intention of providing quality care for patients. Assigned to work with four replacement nurses, she found that they did not know how to do discharges or perform other duties, she related.
“I kept thinking about you guys out here,” she said. “I’ve worked with you guys some 30 years.”
“What we’re hearing from our nurses who are inside is that staffing is horrible, that even the replacement workers that are inside are really upset about the working conditions,” ONA’s Trautner old reporters. “They’re saying that the call lights are going off, that there aren’t enough nurses to answer the call lights in a timely fashion, which is really troubling because that means the patients’ needs aren’t being met.
“That’s a really big concern,” she continued. “That’s why we offered to go back in this morning, and it’s really unfortunate that CHS is sacrificing quality in the name of locking these nurses out and making a point.”
In its statement, Northside said that five of the six bargaining units at ValleyCare hospitals have “overwhelmingly ratified” contracts similar to the offer ONA rejected. The company’s research shows that ONA has agreed to staffing flexibility, a key issues in the standoff between ValleyCare and Northside’s registered nurses, in at least 10 hospitals that surround the Mahoning Valley.
ValleyCare also stated that, despite the union’s claims otherwise, “absolutely nothing” in ValleyCare’s final offer would inhibit nurses’ ability “to execute the professional responsibility to his or her patients.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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