Nurses at the University of Illinois Hospital on Chicago’s West Side have gone on strike after a prolonged contract negotiation that union representatives say management hasn’t taken seriously. The Real News speaks with members of the Illinois Nurses Association from the picket line in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention is simultaneously taking place.
Videography: Cameron Granadino, David Hebden
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Speaker 1: U of I nurses do enough!
Crowd: Management should level up!
Maximillian Alvarez: We’re here at the University of Illinois near West Side Hospital in Chicago. It’s Wednesday, Aug. 21, and on Monday of this week, the same day that the 2024 Democratic National Convention began in the United Center, less than a mile away from where I’m currently standing, hundreds of UI health nurses went on an unfair labor practice strike, demanding safer staffing ratios, better safety protections, and better pay for healthcare workers.
The Real News is here on the picket line talking to these healthcare workers about what they’re fighting for and what message they have, for the folks who are currently congregating at the Democratic National Convention.
Speaker 2: We are fighting for three main issues. One is workplace violence, which has had an increase in the past four years since the last contract. So we are fighting to ensure that a hospital is a safe place to work. No one should go into the hospital ever and feel like they were going to be injured. Sadly, that has happened to multiple nurses where they even have required surgeries because of this.
Secondly, we’re fighting for fair staffing. We want every unit to be able to care for the patient acuity that they are comfortable with and with the amount of nurses that is needed to deal with that.
Third, we are fighting for fair wages. This is for all nurses. We are one of the lowest paid nurse states. If you look at something like Sacramento, they get paid over double us with only having a 5% higher cost of living. We have one of the highest paid CEOs for an academic hospital at $1.3 million, and this last fiscal year, the hospital made $75 million in net position and they’re only giving us less than inflation.
Maximillian Alvarez: I know this is an unfair labor practice strike. Y’all are in the midst of your own contract fight. This is not a political strike. But we are here while the Democratic National Convention is in town at the United Center, less than a mile away from where we’re standing. We’re going to be back there tonight, and I was just wondering if there was a message that we would carry from this picket line into the convention center, what would you want folks in there to know about your struggle and what they could do to help?
Speaker 2: The Democrats love saying that they’re pro-union. They can come out and support every single union. Every hospital in the United States deserves a union because there are bedside nurses, hundreds, we have 1,700 at this hospital, and the only way we can get our voice heard is by a union. So they need to actually show that they want to actually be pro-union and support every union that’s out there. They help every single person when you’re in a union.
Chicago is a city. We live just a few miles from downtown. That’s where this hospital is. The typical one-bedroom apartment in Chicago is $1,800. A new grad, BSN nurse, which means they have a bachelor’s degree, is being paid close to about $34 an hour. When you look into that, it is very tough to survive and have your own apartment as a new graduate nurse. We need better wages.
There’s multiple reasons why nurses burn out, and it’s one of the highest burnt out professions from the bedside. One is because we don’t get paid enough. Two is because we’re constantly dealing with this workplace environment. And three, because it is a taxing job, especially when you’re understaffed and have to constantly work over your ratio.
Lori: My name is Lori. I’ve been at UI Health since 1998, and I’ve seen a lot of changes. We serve the state of Illinois residents, we serve the underserved, and our reason we’re on strike is workplace violence. We’re also looking for safe nurse-patient limits. Our American Nurses Association supports that, and we want that here for our patients so we can provide better care.
Maximillian Alvarez: Well, Lori, thank you so much for talking to us, and I was wondering if you could just say a little more what y’all are out here fighting for. What brought you to this point of going on a week-long unfair labor practice strike at UI Health?
Lori: Well, our management team has been in negotiation since June. They’ve been preoccupied. They have actually not been engaged with giving us proposals back, it’s kind of been one-sided. And we decided when it was getting towards the end of our contract that this is the step we would have to take, do it without a week of pay, and it was worth it.
Maximillian Alvarez: And can you tell us a little more about the issue of workplace violence being so central to this struggle right now?
Lori: Well after COVID, it’s really been on the increase, and we are seeing nurses that are off as long as a year. Our ER and our psychiatric units are getting hit the hardest, and these nurses want to sit on a workplace committee, and they’re not allowed to. It’s all upper, higher management that has no direct patient care.
Maximillian Alvarez: What kind of violence are workers being subjected to here?
Lori: It’s a lot of physical violence: getting hit on the head with objects, actually taking nurses and throwing them to the floor. We had a nurse that had to have surgery, and that nurse was off a year. So really significant injuries where they’re not able to return to work.
Maximillian Alvarez: And as we know, RNs — Well actually, a lot of people don’t know this, but RNs suffer some of the highest workplace injury rates out of any worker in the country. So there’s that on top of the other workplace violence we’re talking about here.
And you started here in 1998, you said? I was wondering how you have seen this hospital system change over your career here?
Lori: Well, we’re a public institution. Like I said, we support and serve the state of Illinois residents. We, over the years, are still just a 455-bed hospital, but we went from one CEO and one CNO to now we have 16 chiefs. They make anywhere from $200,000 all the way up to $500,000. But yet, workers are told there’s no money.
And I really think, this being a public institution, the taxpayers need to be aware. The 1% at this hospital need to be taken out and the 99% of us, as workers, we need to be compensated.
Maximillian Alvarez: And as we said, this is an unfair labor practice strike, this is not a political strike, so I’m not trying to make this a political thing. But we are here covering the Democratic National Convention, the protests. We’re going to be back in the convention tonight. If we could take a message from this picket line into the United Center, what would you want folks in there to know about your plight and what they could be doing to help?
Lori: I think everyone at the convention, and really all workers, need to unite behind unions as well as unionize themselves. Unions have a great value to the workplace. We have weekends, we have eight-hour shifts because of unions. We got to continue to unionize against the 1% who want to take it all at the top.
Maximillian Alvarez: What do these issues, when folks out there who don’t work in healthcare hear these, what do these translate to on a day-to-day, shift-to-shift basis for healthcare workers like yourselves?
Speaker 3: It means that we have less time to focus on our patients when we’re bouncing from room to room, so that creates a patient safety issue, where sometimes I feel like I am neglecting one room when I’m focusing on three others.
Speaker 4: I would agree. If you’re overworked and you don’t have enough people there, then you’re doing the jobs of two and three people. So it’s hard to complete something or take the time that you need to do it.
Maximillian Alvarez: And as we were discussing off camera, I know this is an unfair labor practice strike, not a political strike, but of course we’re here in Chicago covering the Democratic National Convention. Your guys’ strike started the same day the DNC began, on Monday. We’re going to be back on the convention floor tonight, reporting from there. If there was a message that we could bring from the picket line into the United Center tonight, what would you want folks in there to hear about your struggle and what they could do to help?
Speaker 4: I would just say some support so that we can make sure our patients are safe. Anyone can be a patient. Sometimes we’re a patient. So we want to always make sure we’re doing our best to protect them and give them the best care, but we also want to make sure we’re not overworking our nurses, burning them out. Like I said, we have families to take care of as well. This is what we signed up to do. We love what we do, but we want to also be mentally and physically healthy as well at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: If they want our vote, they’re going to have to support us as well. We’ll support them if they support us. We are the heart of this hospital, and the hands, and the feet.
Maximillian Alvarez: Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.
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