Illinois Nurses Association UIC Strike Solidarity

Please support the striking nurses of the Illinois Nurses Association as they fight for Safe Patient Limits and PPE standards! On Saturday, September 12th, the nurses of UIC/UI Health did something they’ve never done: go on strike. The last two contract campaigns in 2014 and 2017 ended with a last-minute deal to avoid a strike. This time around, Management didn’t even bother to make a proposal after telling the bargaining team they “were going to stay up until the wee hours of the morning.” Management reached out to our team lead Matt Bartmes via federal mediators at 3am to let him know that they would not being making any more proposals after receiving a counter from INA at 11p earlier in the night. So what are we fighting for? Three things: Safe staffing, PPE, and reasonable wages. - INA has crafted legislation entitled “The Safe Patient Limits Act” and uses data to craft maximum nurse to patient ratios with the use of an acuity tool. We want to show how this legislation can work for every hospital, so we’re fighting to have our contract mirror the legislation’s language. We understand it’s a big ask and in exchange, we offered to accept, albeit, modified staffing proposals from Management. They refused to even talk about Safe Patient Limits. Even though we’re handing them their three biggest asks, they can’t meet in the middle. They don’t want to negotiate the terms of safe working conditions, they want to dominate us and refuse to share power. In March, the world was swept away by the Covid-19 pandemic. Over 200 of our nurses got sick (and still get sick to this day) and two died: Joyce Pacubas Le Blanc and Maria Lopez. One sick nurse brought Covid-19 home to her husband, Anthony Walo, and he passed away from the disease as well. Management refused to allow nurses to wear masks, let alone N95s, while working in the hospital at the beginning of pandemic. They said they didn’t want patients to think something was wrong and create panic. (Who else does that sound like?) Well, Management’s inability to protect its staff had had grisly results. Even today, N95s are still not available to everyone who needs them. That’s why we’re fighting for a rolling-90-day stock of PPE and universal N95 masking. When it comes to getting paid, we could all use a little more, right? That’s what we’re asking for, just a little more. We should be asking for A LOT more, especially when the hospital brags in Crain’s that they made three quarters of a BILLION dollars in revenue in 2019 alone. But do they use that money to pay its staff? Not a chance. They’re opening a new, $300 million dollar Outpatient Surgery Center, a $16 million dollar “Welcome Atrium” and continue to pay CEO Michael Zenn more than half a million in salary, CNO Dr. Shelly Major more than $300k, and 11 ACNOs more than a combined 2 million dollars. These top 1% earners have the gall to tell us we make too much while we put our lives on the line, get sick, get our families sick, and risk death. CNO Major wasn’t even seen on campus for nearly 6 months, while the rest of the nurses under her toiled away, being exposed to Covid-19 nearly every day. We’ve made reasonable requests and proposals at the bargaining table, and the University and the Hospital refuse to acknowledge them. So that can only mean that the team leading the Board of Trustees’ demands, must be completely unreasonable. It’s the only thing that makes sense.