http://www.laborradio.org/node/13233Submitted by Doug Cunningham on April 1, 2010 - 3:20pm
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By Doug Cunningham
Fifteen hundred RN’s and other healthcare workers are in the second day of their strike at Temple University Hospital in Pennsylvania. The nurses have gone five months without a new contract. Bill Zoda is a shop steward with the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals.
: “There hasn’t really been any negotiations since we started this process. They gave us something called a last, best and final offer six months ago. And they haven’t changed a word in it, at all. And we’ve met several times since then.”
Temple University Hospital wants to increase the health care costs – in some cases double or triple the cost - for RN’s and other health care workers, end a tuition benefit for workers and impose a gag order preventing nurses and other union members from commenting publicly about hospital management. Wages are also an issue. The unions says Temple’s offer doesn’t reflect the true increase in the cost of living since the last contract. Union president Maureen May says despite good faith efforts by the union to negotiate, Temple University Hospital has held fast to what it calls its “best and final offer”, triggering the strike.
(Audio in this report is from Labor Justice Radio, broadcast on WPEB-FM in Philadelphia.)
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