More than 65,000 nurses affiliated with the union National Nurses United are poised for contentious bargaining negotiations with major healthcare systems this year over rectifying staffing and safety issues exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is nurses who have from the start of this pandemic called on the hospitals to make appropriate plans to increase staffing and increase training, to put in place clear infection control protocols. … But the hospitals didn’t listen, and the consequences have been deadly and devastating,” Khadijah Kabba, collective bargaining director for National Nurses United, said on Friday.
Nurses represented by the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee, affiliates of the NNU, are set to enter contract negotiations with major healthcare employers this year across nine states. They are demanding that their employers put extra safeguards in place to keep caregivers healthy at work. The pandemic wreaked havoc on hospitals last year, as healthcare providers quickly ran through already-strained supplies of personal protective equipment, such as masks, gloves, and gowns, forcing them to reuse single-use equipment for days at a time.
Nurses were also tasked with caring for more patients at a time than is normal. Staffing shortages were exacerbated by high turnover rates due to burnout as well as sickness from COVID-19.
Now nurses are demanding hospital systems dedicate more funds to bolstering the supply of necessary supplies and hire more staff. The union will also demand job protections for when nurses get sick from any infectious disease, not solely COVID-19, while on the job.
“We walk into these bargaining negotiations with these painful memories. We sit down at the table still coping with the heartache and illness we suffered and that our community suffered. That is why we are so fiercely committed to addressing these persistent problems in our contracts,” California Nurses Association President Sandy Reding said.
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Fluctuating patient volumes and increased spending on medical supplies and medications threatened to overwhelm hospital employers last year, yet the largest hospital systems, such as Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, still saw massive financial wins. HCA Healthcare posted 2020 profits totaling $3.75 billion, up from $3.5 billion in 2019.
