Pennsylvania Nurses Inspired by Teachers' Strikes to 'Fight the Same Fight'

By Mike Elk, Guardian UK

22 December 18

After about 370 nurses protested drastic changes from hospital management, union officials expect more across the US in 2019

eep in the heart of Trump country, Indiana, Pennsylvania, the hometown of Jimmy Stewart served as the inspiration for Bedford Falls in the hit holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life. However, this year nurses say that one of the town’s largest employers, the Indiana Regional Medical Center (IRMC), is turning Stewart’s hometown into a Pottersville, the dystopian alternative universe of the Christmas classic.

“They want to cut benefits for nurses so that they get more money and they work for less,” said Indiana Regional Nurses Association (Irna) leader Lisa Traister. “We have a lot of nurses that are leaving because with the [company’s] proposal there is no way that they can work plus pay for the cost of healthcare benefits.”

For the past five months nurses employed at IRMC, represented by the Irna, a joint organizing project of the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have been unable to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with the profitable community hospital.

The hospital’s top executives have demanded that nurses pay more for healthcare, with some nurses being asked to pay as much as $600 out of pocket, a reduction in paid sick time and more unpredictable schedule that would make family life tough.

On 26 November, about 370 nurses went on a one-day strike to protest against drastic changes asked for by hospital management. In the 10 days leading up to strike, the nurses hoped that the threat of the strike would force the hospital to the bargaining table.

However, the hospital only met the union once to inform them that if they went out on strike, there would be severe consequences. On 27 November, the nurses attempted to return to work, but were locked out by their employers and not allowed to return to work till 1 December – depriving them of a week’s pay just as the holiday season was about to hit.

“It’s like they are taking a page out of Mr Potter’s playbook,” says Annie Briscoe, a PSEA union organizer working with the nurses.

Across the nation, nurses union officials say to expect more strikes like the one in Indiana as hospitals seek increasing concessions from a workforce that is feeling empowered by the wave of teachers to strike across the United States over the last year.

Nurses’ union leaders say that the growing militancy of nurses to strike is driven by the same forces as the teachers’ strike: underfunding of community healthcare systems, frustration with male-dominated management in a profession that is 80% female, and growing community support nationwide for unions.

“Just like educators who care for our nation’s children, nurses are constantly being asked to do more with less,” said AFT president Randi Weingarten, whose union represents over 120,000 healthcare workers and is the second-largest nurses’ union in the AFL-CIO.

“Nurses and educators are on the front lines every day, at great personal sacrifice, selflessly taking care of our most vulnerable – our young people and those who are sick,” said Weingarten. “The wave of educator activism has inspired nurses to fight the same fight: for the people they care for, for the resources and security to do their jobs well, for fair pay, for adequate staffing, for latitude and autonomy, and for the right to be treated as professionals.”

Last week, 4,000 mental health clinicians in California, members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) employed at Kaiser Permanente, went on a five-day strike in the largest strike of mental health care workers in the nation’s history.

Due to understaffing, mental health clinics say that patients, often in states of crisis, in Kaiser are often forced to wait six to 12 weeks just to get the first appointment with a mental health clinician due to understaffing.

“We felt it was time to stand up and say things need to change,” says Kaiser mental health clinician Vanessa Carrillo.

Kaiser is technically a not-for-profit corporation, but that hasn’t stopped wages booming for its top executives. While mental health clinicians at Kaiser are being stripped of their pensions, Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson’s total compensation increased from $10m in 2016 to $16m in 2017 according to tax records.

“We have seen the corporatization of healthcare for some time, but over the last few years, it’s gotten worse and worse,” said Kate Opennheim, the local union president at the University of Michigan healthcare system, where the university has added new administrations as the system expands. “They don’t care like we do, it’s all about the bottom line. Some of our mid-level nursing administration, whom we’ve worked well with for decades, are getting kinda pushed to side”.

While women make up 80% of the employees in the healthcare sector nationwide, but woman makeup only 18% of all hospital CEOs and are disproportionately underrepresented in the lower ranks of hospital administrators

In the post-#MeToo era, women in the healthcare system facing cutbacks are standing up against male-dominated healthcare leadership.

“There is rampant sexism,” says Oppenheim, whose union had to fight the university’s healthcare system for nine months alone to reach agreement on contract language that made the medical system’s sexual discrimination policy more rigorous. “We thought it would be easy to get agreement on sexual harassment policy, but it was very difficult.”

However, now when healthcare workers take action, they find that they are increasing community support especially as the media, which has seen a wave of unionization itself in the past few years, are giving the struggles of healthcare workers increasingly favorable coverage.

“From this year to seven years ago, the media coverage has been way better,” said Oppenheim of her union’s recent contract struggles at the University of Michigan healthcare system.

Back in Jimmy Stewart’s hometown of Indiana, the cause of the nurses’ strike has become a viral sensation on social media.

Community members the tightknit community deep in Trump country, much like in the teachers’ strike, have rallied behind the female heavy workforce of the Indiana regional medical center, with local restaurants lining downtown Philadelphia Street offering free food to the nurses and posting signs of solidarity.

“I think part of the action with the nurses in Indiana has really revitalized the labor movement in this area particularly in Indiana county, where this county once had a strong presence of unionism with the mine workers,” says PSEA’s Annie Briscoe. “Now, people are coming out the woodwork, at one point, people might have felt ashamed to say that they were pro-union and now they are shouting it from the rooftops in the middle of Philadelphia Street.”

Much like in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, members of the town have to stay tried to the reputation of the town as portrayed in the Christmas classic; rallying against the forces of greed hurting the town as the holidays hit.

“People do draw on that spirit of the community especially around the holiday and what better to do that than in Indiana, the birthplace of Jimmy Stewart,” said Briscoe.