December 8, 2024

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Strike looms for 1,700 University of Illinois nurses, as Trump plans sweeping assaults on healthcare system

Strike looms for 1,700 University of Illinois nurses, as Trump plans sweeping assaults on healthcare system
Nurses picket University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago in September

More than 1,700 University of Illinois (UI) nurses are set to strike indefinitely, according to the Illinois Nurses Association (INA). They have been working without a contract since mid-August, when a one-week strike was ended with none of their demands being met. The nurses authorized this second open-ended strike in October, after repeated negotiations with UI Health (UIH) management failed to result in added contract language on safety.

One of their main demands is a higher wage to meet rising costs of living: Chicago has the second highest inflation out of any metro area in the US, but UIH is offering pathetic 2 percent wage increases.

The other main demand is for improved staff-to-patient ratios to provide adequate and safe care to their patients. They are also demanding specialists work in their areas of expertise instead of pooling nurses across hospital departments.

A staff nurse with UI, David Martucci, noted, “These are serious issues. We just want to see substantive movement. We’ve tried to find common ground, and we’ve been meeting them more than halfway in some of these issues. But we’re still not making any progress.”

“Staff can get hurt, sometimes with extensive lifelong injuries,” he added. “I’ve been assaulted on the job, and many others have, too.” Many nurses are primary bread winners and their families desperately depend on their paychecks to make ends meet.

During the first strike in August, the union had written, “UIH nurses sacrificed their health and their family time to save lives, fight COVID spread and treat Chicago’s most vulnerable patient community over the past few years. Over that same time, they have experienced understaffing, workplace violence and a loss in purchasing power thanks to the record inflation of recent years.”

In their usual parlance, however, the UIH has rejected these demands, issuing a statement claiming, “The majority of UI Health nurses currently are paid better than 90 percent of nurses in the Chicagoland area. Under our current proposal, UI Health nurses will continue to receive top pay compared to Chicagoland peers.”

In response to the strike action, UIH declared it has activated “comprehensive plans to anticipate, respond to and mitigate staffing disruptions that may occur over the coming weeks, including a process to secure nursing agency staff, ensuring that in the event of a strike our patients continue to receive the outstanding care they need.” In other words, they plan to break the strike with scab labor.

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