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‘Everything’s going up except our wages’: Striking nurses at the University of Illinois at Chicago speak from the picket line

Online Niel November 16, 2024

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More than 1,700 nurses at the University of Illinois Hospital System, known as UI Health (UIH), in Chicago are on strike. The nurses had been working without a contract since August, when the previous agreement expired. After a weeklong strike that month, the Illinois Nurses Association (INA) sent nurses back to work without an agreement.

In the last contract offer, UIH offered a salary increase of only 2 percent. Nurses have now authorized an indefinite strike to win pay rises, improved patient-to-nurse staffing ratios and improved workplace safety and security.

Reporters with World Socialist Web Site spoke with nurses on the picket line Wednesday to learn more about the issues in the strike.

Melia, an early stage nurse who only recently started working at the UIH hospital, told reporters, “We need to have safe staffing resources and the ability to provide safe care to our patients. Without that, we don’t have what it takes to succeed and do our best for our patients.”

She added: “I want to make a career out of this job. I always hear my colleagues say they love working here, but they can’t afford it! Of all the places I applied to, this one offered me the lowest base salary. I want to make this something I can continue to do and we want to keep our best nurses.

“This is a public hospital, so a lot of people who come here don’t have the same options of going to any of these fancy private hospitals with nice insurance policies. So when we try to provide world-class care, it’s up to us. The patients who come here trust us with their lives, and we want to give them the best care possible.”

Melia and other nurses who spoke with WSWS shared that in recent years, nurses have seen a sharp increase in cases of violence in hospitals. Several nurses shared stories of abuse they witnessed or experienced, including loaded guns being brought into patent rooms.

“Some nurses find it difficult to manage the toll this environment takes on them… we had two members of the bargaining team who were attacked during the bargaining process. For a while, the hospital safety committee didn’t even have a nursing body to represent it.” She continued: “To think this is what we have to deal with on a daily basis to provide the care we love to give is heartbreaking.”

She also spoke with Alejandra, a veteran pediatric nurse with 14 years of experience WSWS the reporters. “We are fighting for fair wages. We demand fair wages to close the inflation gap. Our parking has gone up, our insurance has gone up, everything is going up except wages.” She explained: “We’re currently asking for 7 per cent, which I don’t think is a lot to ask for, given that our chief nursing officer got 20 per cent.”

“In the pediatric clinic, the violence we see is more verbal abuse from parents and patients. But I feel that if we had support and protection from our administration, then we would be able to better serve our patients.”

Alejandra said that in her area, there can sometimes be more than 200 patients scheduled at any one time. “We currently have agency nurses helping to fill the gap,” she said, “but there are no staffing percentages in the outpatient unit. So if management could help us get a safe nurse to patient ratio, that would be very helpful in helping to determine the number of nurses needed.”

She added: “We have over twenty specialties and we have sick children, we have healthy children, we have children who need vaccines and are waiting in the waiting area, but then there is no place to put them to be seen. by doctors.”

“We all care about our patients. We all love our jobs and what we do. We’re committed to working here and to our patients, so the camaraderie that the nurses have, the solidarity that we have, we go through things together.”

The UIH strike comes amid a wave of contract battles and strikes by major US healthcare systems. At the University of California, more than 40,000 health care workers will go on strike next week over similar issues, including the rapidly rising cost of living. A strike by 4,500 technicians at the University of Michigan Health System was scheduled to begin Tuesday, but was called at the last minute by the United Michigan Medicine Allied Professionals (UMMAP) union.

In both cases, the union bureaucracies work to undermine the general demand for a strike and for serious improvements in their conditions. In Michigan, UMMAP agreed to call off the strike after reaching a “memorandum of understanding” with Michigan Medicine.

The memorandum was not an interim agreement and did not fulfill any of the demands of the workers. His aim was to make it look like progress was being made towards a deal to get workers back to work without improving their conditions.

Similarly, the University of California strike is planned by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) to last only two days. The purpose of this type of “Hollywood strike” is to allow workers to escape before sending them back to work without a contract.

UIH workers also experienced these tactics in August, when the INA limited the initial strike to just one week before ordering them back to work.

Health care workers across the country are in a strong position to win serious gains that go beyond the small raises proposed by union bureaucrats. But to do this, grassroots committees must be organized to take strike organization out of the hands of the INA and other union officials and into the hands of the health workers themselves.

With a core committee, nurses can present their own list of requests based on what they need, not based on what the hospital administration says is acceptable. It can also combat strike isolation by connecting with health care workers in other health systems in Chicago and nationally. Chicago nurses should connect and coordinate their strikes with health care workers in California, Michigan and other states.

As health care workers struggle to keep food on the table, the stock market has soared in preparation for Donald Trump to resume his term as the next president. The plans of the billionaire financial oligarchy are underway to prepare to increase their already enormous wealth.

These plans can only be paid for by increasing the exploitation of the working class. This will include additional price increases, layoffs and reduced benefits.

Nurses and health workers must not accept these attacks on their living standards while the capitalist class reaps trillions of dollars. There is plenty of money in society to provide nurses with high salaries, full benefits, and adequate staffing levels in hospitals. It is, however, hoarded by the rich.

To win the strike and make serious gains, Chicago nurses should join the rank and file committee of health care workers and fight to link the strike into a common struggle with all workers against the capitalist system.

Association-anemone

Association-anemone

‘Everything’s going up except our wages’: Striking nurses at the University of Illinois at Chicago speak from the picket line

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‘Everything’s going up except our wages’: Striking nurses at the University of Illinois at Chicago speak from the picket line

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