Amid labor strife, nurses from RWJBarnabas’ hospitals will host community meeting

Nurses at Clara Maass Medical Center will be joined by striking RNs from RWJ University Hospital and RNs from other institutions to discuss short staffing, disrespect, high-turnover, and other concerns.

WHEN: 5PM to 7PM on Tuesday, September 12

WHERE: Vets hall at 100 Newark Avenue, Belleville, NJ, 07109

WHO: RNs from Clara Maass (members of 1199SEIU), University Hospital (members of USW-4-200), and other institutions will be joined by community members and elected officials including Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake and Essex County Commissioner Wayne Richardson.

WHY:
Earlier this summer on Thursday, June 8, Clara Maass Medical Center conducted its state-mandated annual community meeting. The meeting, attended overwhelmingly (if not entirely) by hospital management and staff, was a monologue by the CEO which offered no opportunity for questions or public input and seemed more like a perfunctory exercise to meet the state requirement than a genuine community conversation.

This type of conduct was par for the course, nurses say. Concerned that RWJ-Barnabas institutions have been neglecting community and caregiver voices for too long, Clara Maass nurses are hosting a community meeting of their own, to discuss staffing and patient care concerns alongside their RN colleagues at other RWJBarnabas Health institutions.

Today, over 1700 nurses, members of USW 4-200 at University Hospital in New Brunswick, have been on strike for over 5 weeks. Rather than engaging with its nurses and working towards improving staffing levels, the hospital has spent $45 million on replacement workers. Earlier this month, the hospital cut off the nurses’ health insurance.

Concurrently, over 500 RNs at Clara Maass, members of 1199SEIU, have been demanding a fair contract that gives nurses input on patient care and staffing issues. When nurses proposed the creation of a labor-management committee as a forum to address workplace concerns, Clara Maass rejected the idea—denying the value of nurses’ professional experience in providing frontline care. Management also rejected proposals to establish basic quality-of-life benefits for nurses to care for their children and promote their own professional development, including a Child Care Fund and Training and Education Fund which require minimal investment by the employer.

As the largest health system in New Jersey and the state’s largest private-sector employer, nurses say that RWJBarnabas Health can, and must, do better for its employees and the communities they serve.

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1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East is the largest and fastest-growing healthcare union in New Jersey and nationwide. We represent over 16,000 healthcare families in New Jersey and over 450,000 total members throughout New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to achieve quality care and good jobs for all.