Amid strike, interim CEO says she thinks as a nurse (strike by 1,500 nurses and allied professionals

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

By Stacey Burling

The strike by 1,500 nurses and allied professionals at Temple University Hospital has put the hospital's interim chief executive, Sandy Gomberg, in the spotlight.

A nurse herself, Gomberg has become the public face and, on radio ads, voice of the North Philadelphia institution as it makes its case that it must take a hard line against PASNAP (Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals) even as it spends millions on strike-replacement workers.

While striking workers say Temple could settle for what it's spending to stay open during the strike, Gomberg says the long-term costs of meeting the nurses' demands "dwarf" the cost of staying open during the strike, now in its fourth week. And, she said, costs are dropping as striking workers cross the picket line to return to work. She said 10 percent of PASNAP members (the union said it was 6.5 percent) were now working under the terms of the hospital's contract proposal.

A bargaining session is scheduled for noon Saturday.

Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20100424_Amid_strike__interim_CEO_says_she_thinks_as_a_nurse.html

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Video on the strike here: http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/health/042310_Temple_University_Hospital_Nurses_Strike

I would NEVER cross a picket line. NEVER.

In general, I do not cross picket lines. But there are exceptions.

Most of my exceptions fall in one of two groups. The first group, more common outside the US, is what I would call the "institutionalized" or "symbolic" picket or protest. For example, some years ago in Italy on my last morning at a hotel, the maids wanted to start cleaning the room early, even though I had not quite vacated the room; there was an afternoon strike scheduled for noon, and they wanted to finish the rooms before the strike!

The second type of picket that I might cross are those related to disputes between unions. I hate these types of disputes, particularly hate the NYC version of these. Possibly with the lines manned not by striking employees, but "organizers" from the competing union, blocking access to entire buildings while supposedly picketing a single tenant.

In one of these cases in NYC involving a union vs union dispute with a different building tenant, the pickets called the women in my party "whores" and worse as the police had to clear a path from taxi to building door. I had noticed the picket line earlier and had researched the situation and decided it was unrelated to me, but I was unprepared for how aggressive and abusive it had become that night. (I have a modest amount of experience with NYC unions because I have exhibited at trade shows there for 30 years.)

For a more typical example, would you enter your local mall if, for example, the Teamsters were picketing outside against some tenant whose employees were already represented by Service Employees or United Food?

Or what would you do after landing at a foreign airport when the pickets are at the exits leading to local transport? (And you haven't a clue.)

Crossing a picket line to work as a nurse in this hospital makes that individual a scab. This hospital has a history of understaffing their units. If a nurse is expected to do the work of 2 nurses, she should get a 3 fucking percent increase annually. And... if all other professional university employees have as part of their benefit package tuition reimbursement or tuition waived for their dependents at Temple, then the nurses should get that too. Most hospitals offer tuition reimbursement of some type to their employees. This is not the highest paying hospital in the region. Therefore the benefits should at least bring in some parity. This CEO was a nurse for a very short time-- she had one actual nursing job in an ICU where I am sure she never had more than 2 patients at one time. She then went into management. To call herself a nurse is ingenuous. She is a tool to break the union. Maybe her next job will be the CEO of Walmart health clinics.

I wasn't commenting on the particular case with Temple.

I was replying to the comment, "I would NEVER cross a picket line. NEVER." That sounds really great in theory, but is not so great in practice, at least not for me. Absolutism is a problem in most endeavours.

of Temple University has had less interest in the medical school and has been focused more on building the main campus.

Temple Graduate, they were also a client when I was doing consulting 4 years back.

Sure helps to put things in perspective.