Temple Nurses Press Conference on Potential Strike

 National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George will join rank-and-file union leaders on Friday to pledge all-out support from organized labor for an impending strike by Temple University Hospital’s 1,500 nurses and professional and technical employees.  Shortly before the press event, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) will deliver a 10-day strike notice to the hospital, setting a walkout deadline of 7:00 A.M. Wednesday, March 31.

            “This is my home state and Philadelphia is labor’s house,” Trumka said earlier this week.  “We will not allow Temple Hospital, an institution supported by taxpayer funds, to thumb their noses at the labor movement and the political leaders that consistently support Temple when they request additional funding.”

            Trumka, 59, a former coal miner, was elected president of the AFL-CIO last Fall in Pittsburgh.  He said the labor federation’s 11 million members around the country will provide “whatever strike support is needed, for as long as it’s needed.”

             WHAT:           Press conference to announce strike notice, labor support

            WHEN:           10:15 AM, Friday, March 19

            WHERE:        Outside main entrance to Temple University Hospital, Broad & Ontario Sts.

             “We’ve been working without a contract since September of last year,” said Maureen May, RN, president of the Temple union.  “The hospital has refused to even discuss our demands for safe staffing and hasn’t budged on its demands for massive concessions, choosing instead to engage in bad faith bargaining.  Our members are the backbone of Temple University Hospital and we will strike if we must to force them to give us the respect we deserve.”

May said the hospital wants to double and triple health care premiums, eliminate a tuition reimbursement program that attracted many of the union’s members to the hospital and implement a “gag order” allowing the hospital to discipline or fire employees who make public comments hospital officials decide are “disparaging” of the hospital or its executives.

“We’re obligated by our licenses and professional ethics to advocate for our patients,” May said.  “We won’t give up our right to raise our voices on their behalf.”

Bill Cruice, Executive Director of PASNAP, said, “Temple is on a reckless path.  They are willing to spend more money on imported strikebreakers than it would take to settle a fair contract.  We know from other healthcare strikes that patients’ lives will be put at risk by the strikebreakers, who are flown in from all around the country in search of quick money.”