Nursing CE Central
Today marks the sixth day since 1,700 nurses at Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) University Hospital walked out over stagnated contract negotiations between the hospital and the nurses’ union. Preceding this strike, negotiations have been underway since April 10th of this year.
Over the last three years, nearly one-third of New Jersey nurses have left the profession. Nurses are not being provided safe sustainable working conditions, one nurse at RWJ asked, “if we are spread, too many patients to take care of, how can they get the attention and the care that they deserve, that any patient deserves?”
One report calls RWJ’s response a “relentless propaganda campaign” that would have the nurses and the public believe that negotiations have devolved into “he-said-she-said nonsense.”
This article will detail the current conditions at RWJ’s University Hospital, the demands of the nurse’s union, and the hospital’s response to these negotiations. As each side of this negotiation comes to the table with their own agenda it is important to deconstruct how and why some things are being said, especially since public perception is a key currency during a strike.
August 4th marked the first nursing strike in New Jersey this year, as well as the first nurses‘ strike at RWJ University Hospital since 2006. After 3 months of negotiations, the administration at RWJ and union leadership agreed to the new contract terms. However, union members voted to reject this deal and continue negotiations.
On July 24th the union gave RWJ notice of their intent to strike after 10 days if a deal was not reached.
As of June 12th, there are 1,705 nurses in the United Steelworkers Health Care Workers Union at RWJ. There are six nurses that make up the United Steelworkers Health Care Workers Union’s executive board at RWJ.
Judy Danella, the president has been a nurse at RWJ since 1995. Donna Yetman, the 1st vice-president has worked in RWJ’s OR for the past 20 years. Karin Fisher since has worked at RWJ since 1983; Judy Donnelly, since 1991; Mary Silvestre, since 2000; Renee Bacany, since 2006.
Staffing is a constant problem at RWJ. According to Nurse Silvestre, the current staffing ratio in RWJ’s oncology unit is one to five. She says that of the 10 nurses trained in oncology last year, five have left the hospital. In RWJ’s intensive care unit, the ratio is one to three and the union wants that reduced to one to two.
A lack of training due to high turnover is also causing problems. RWJ has decreased the number of physicians in their emergency rooms in favor of PAs who have lower salaries. This means responsibilities that once belonged to physicians are now loaded onto nurses who may have little to no experience in senior positions within emergency rooms.
In intensive care units, nurses being assigned to a single patient per shift lowers that patient’s mortality risk by 9% and for surgery patients the risk is lowered 16%.
Nurses at RWJ state that the hospital offered minimum staffing guidelines but no enforceable ratios. In California, where many nurses consider the ideal staffing policy, hospitals are fined $15,000 for their first violation of nurse staffing ratios and $30,000 for each subsequent violation.
About 150 nurses marched to the office of Frank Pallone Jr., a congressman serving NJ’s 6th district, expecting his support. As he was not in the office the nurses each signed a note and left it with his staff. Pallone claims to have been in frequent contact with the union and hospital leadership.
One nurse, Carol Tanzi who works in pediatrics at RWJ, collected nearly 400 signatures for a petition asking Gov. Phil Murphy to publicly support the strike. The governor’s deputy press secretary, Christi Pine made the following response:
“The governor recognizes and values the hard work of nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital who provide critical services to countless patients. The governor remains a strong proponent of organized labor and believes employees deserve a seat at the table when negotiating labor matters. The administration encourages both parties to maintain an open dialogue and will continue to remain engaged with them as they work towards a fair and acceptable resolution to these negotiations.”
Some representatives have already joined the nurses on the picket line, including Christine Clarke, a state senate candidate for NJ’s 5th district who attended with her son.
Debbie White, president of Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE) which is the largest healthcare union in New Jersey, was also present at the strike. She and many members of HPAE have come together to support the nurses at RWJ in their fight for safe staffing practices. This year, HPAE has helped five local charters to renew contracts with their hospitals.
RWJ University Hospital is the principal hospital of Rutgers University’s medical school. Dr. Carol Terregino, one of the school’s deans, requested medical students volunteer at the hospital when the nurses go on strike. They refused, with 379 students and residents singing a letter stating, “the request to provide unpaid labor in jobs we are not trained to do at the expense of our own educational programming raises concerns about exploitation and risks creating an unsafe environment for patients.”
Some of these medical students have now joined the picket line in support of the nurses at RWJ.
RWJ has a plethora of highly polished videos, infographics, and documentation regarding their stance on the nurses on strike. In comparison, RWJ has undermined the authority and dignity of the union at every turn.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of seemingly unprofessional behavior from RWJ’s administration, some of these examples will be expanded upon later on.
In one video RWJ address striking nurses directly, stating that nurses are the “face and heart of their hospital. So we [RWJ] are extremely disappointed that your union has decided to strike.” This separation of nurses from their union seems off when considering that a nurses union cannot call for a strike itself, a strike must be voted on by a majority of nurses.
This video also appears to pit nurses in New Jersey against one another by repeatedly stating that nurses at RWJ make more than other nurses across the state and that the hospital’s offer “would have made you and your colleagues even more highly paid than your peers.”
It’s unclear how this reminder is meant to endear viewers when the video includes that the hospital’s offer to increase wages over three years would not even meet current inflation rates (meaning that nurses would be effectively making less over the next three years).
RWJ emphasizes the “richness” of this offer by stating that hospitals nationwide are struggling. RWJ’s University Hospital is part of RWJ Barnabas Health network which reported a $5.7 million operating gain in Q1 of this year.
Some may question RWJ’s sincerity when bringing up struggling hospitals when just last year the Federal Trade Commission had blocked RWJ from Merging with Saint Peter’s Healthcare System. The FTC stated this deal would have “harmed patients living in the systems’ markets.”
RWJ has also faced a lawsuit from CarePoint Health over alleged monopolization efforts, claiming that RWJ’s “goal explicitly disregarded the needs of the poor, underinsured and charity care patients which CarePoint serves in its role as the safety net hospital system in Jersey City and surrounding areas.”
In other documentation provided by RWJ, they claim that the union “orchestrated” this strike. This document, titled “Setting the Record Straight” includes highly emotive language from RWJ’s administration, for example stating that the union’s statement is a “petty swipe” at the hospital’s offer.
This document included an all-capitalized declaration of “WE ARE PREPARED TO DISCUSS THE FACTS WITH ANYONE AT ANYTIME” from RWJ. Unless anyone includes News 12 or the patients who are perhaps most directly affected by hospital working conditions as RWJ states this is a “totally inappropriate” audience.
This document also claims that “it is impossible for the union to even know whether our staffing is safe or not when they will not even listen to what the current staffing is.” For clarity, the union in question is comprised of the nurses that staff RWJ’s University Hospital, therefore it seems unlikely that it is impossible for these nurses to know whether the staffing at RWJ is safe.
Perhaps most disturbingly, stating that everyone was harmed by the union “not agreeing to pull the strike notice pending ratification of a revised MOA, particularly in light of the fact that a $11,744,000 payment that could have been avoided,” appears to mean that the hospital was using the payment of temporary nurses to guilt or otherwise push the union’s nurses into taking action more quickly.
From this document it appears that eight days before the strike was set to occur the hospital’s administration shared the temporary staffing agency’s invoice of $11,744,000 in an attempt to guilt or otherwise push the union’s nurses into pulling the strike notice pending another vote of a revised offer.
The hospital claims that “the union could have simply reinstated the notice” later if necessary. However, strikes require due notice which means the scheduled start date of August 4th would have to be pushed back and everyone would still be in the same position again, especially given that the hospital had already made a $6.2 million payment to the temporary staffing earlier in the negotiations.
The document states that “the union has made it clear that the cost of strike preparation is everyone’s problem but theirs” which is correct. The nursing staff at RWJ who have voted to strike are not responsible for the fiscal obligations of the hospital employing temporary nursing staff. They are required to give notice of any strike in order to grant the hospital time to hire these temporary nurses, but that notice does not give the hospital leave to berate the union for costs incurred.
This emphasis on the payment for temporary nurses also opens RWJ up to strange discrepancies in their story. In the document discussed above, the hospital stated that payment had to be made by Monday afternoon (July 31st) which would have given the union about three and a half days to discuss the revised offer before rescinding the strike notice. However, the negotiation timeline provided by RWJ shows that the payment was made on July 28th.
This document claims that the union “has been more and more focused on money” rather than staffing, as the union claims. However, it is the union negotiating for penalties if minimum staffing requirements are not met, while the hospital suggested a $20/hr bonus for nurses working below minimum staffing requirements.
This suggestion was made on August 2nd, meaning that earlier revision did include an amendment on staffing despite the union stating it is their largest issue.
It is also the hospital that repeatedly emphasizes the cost of this strike and how “sadly, this will also deeply affect our nurses and their families, with lost wages and benefits.” Yet the hospital did not seem to value these benefits during negotiations when they told the union “that your members would take turns calling out sick to get a bonus.”
$17.4 million is no small price to pay but a strange cost to emphasize when in 2022 Barry Ostrowsky, former CEO of RWJ Barnabas, was paid more than $16 million. As RWJ states in their own document, “facts are stubborn things.”
RWJ has paid for at least 800 temporary nurses to work for 60 days.
RWJ has repeatedly signaled its desire to enter binding arbitration with the nurse’s union. They have claimed it is the only way to end the “he-said-she-said nonsense” of the current negotiations.
Binding arbitration is when a neutral party decides a labor dispute with both sides agreeing to whatever decision is made without further revision. The union did enter into binding arbitration in 2020 and has refused to renter again, claiming it did not benefit the members. The nurses believe they are the most informed party on what constitutes safe staffing, not an arbitrator.
This firm refusal has not stopped RWJ from repeating their offer in several statements across their responses in what appears to be an appeal to seem generous and forthcoming in the negotiation process. However, arbitration is not typically done between parties who are both openly negotiating.
Binding arbitration may be a desirable option for unions entering negotiation on a more even playing field with their employer. However, considering RWJ’s concerted effort both financially and in the court of public opinion, it is understandable that the nurses would want to ensure the ability to revise and negotiate any contract.
RWJ has taken proactive action to apologize to their neighbors and fellow business for any noise made by the striking nurses. Meanwhile, outside at a nearby church, a DJ energized the nurses on the picket line. RWJ states that New Brunswick Police was present at the strike to “mitigate this[noise] as much as possible.”
Nurse Danella describes the mood of the strike as both exciting and sad, saying “the nurses want to be inside. The nurses are here to support the union and safe staffing, but ultimately we belong inside.”
Tonight, on August 9th representatives from RWJ and the nurses’ union will meet to negotiate for the first time since the strike began. Hopefully both sides with openly listen and negotiate a contract that benefits the patients RWJ serves and provides the nurses adequate resources and working conditions to safely provide care for RWJ’s patients.
The nurses outside of RWJ are prepared to wait out RWJ in their pursuit of safe, sustainable staffing conditions and equitable compensation. At Nursing CE Central we stand with nurses and their commitment to patient care.
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