Asheville Mission nurses strike vote imminent; “Not allowed to pee or eat at work”
ASHEVILLE – In a sign of rising tensions with the owners of Mission Hospital, nurses will soon vote on whether to authorize a strike over working conditions they say are so understaffed that they cannot use the bathroom or eat.
For four days beginning Aug. 25, nurses will vote on whether to give union leaders authorization to strike. While union leaders are unlikely to do so, a yes vote would add pressure to ongoing negotiations between nurses and Mission’s owner, Hospital Corporation of America.
Voting will end on August 29, and the result will likely be announced that evening or the next day, said Elle Kruta, a local union leader and nurse with over 20 years of experience.
A majority of the 1,600 union and non-union nurses have already signed strike pledges, Kruta told the Citizen Times on Aug. 20. But she declined to say that meant a majority would likely vote for the strike.
“I really can’t speculate on that,” she said, adding, “People should know that the whole point of this is to provide quality care.”
On July 2, the nurses’ union’s contract with for-profit HCA, which in 2019 bought the nonprofit Mission Health system – the largest in western North Carolina – for $1.5 billion, adding it to the country’s largest hospital network, ended.
Since then, nurses and HCA management have been negotiating a new contract, and by mid-July they seemed to have come closer on some issues. But by the end of the month, local union leaders said there were still many disagreements, including over pay, staffing, extra money for holidays and night shifts, paid vacation and protection from workplace violence.
Kruta, the local union leader, declined to comment on the details of the negotiations, but the local union’s Facebook page listed the points of contention.
The July 31 post said HCA had denied a nurse’s request for an experience-based pay scale and said they could not be guaranteed meal and bathroom breaks due to staff shortages.
“We often can’t pee or eat at work because we’re caring for our patients,” the post says.
Tentative agreements include providing fun scrubs for pediatric nurses, allowing more healthcare experience to count toward pay, making parking easier and not allowing technology to replace judgment.
The next scheduled negotiation for nursing staff and management is on August 27.
When asked about the issues and the strike authorization vote on Aug. 20, Mission/HCA spokeswoman Nancy Lindell said nurses are important and the company is committed to reaching a “fair and equitable” collective agreement.
But Lindell continued to accuse the union, which is part of the California-based National Nurses Union, of negotiating in bad faith.
“It is disappointing that the union continues to mislead its members even though we have scheduled bargaining dates for this month, next month and in October. If NNU leadership does indeed decide to go on the strike it has pre-arranged, Mission Hospital will remain open. We have taken proactive measures, including signing contracts with fully qualified and licensed nurses who are ready to step in to ensure our patients receive the healthcare they need and deserve,” she said.
If local union leaders call a strike, federal law requires them to give 10 days’ notice. The union has said it will be a short, one-day action, but union leaders acknowledged that the hospital could lock them out for longer.
Nurses at HCA-owned facilities in several other states were also on the verge of going on strike, local union leader and nurse Mark Klein said in a June 28 post on the Mission Nurses United Facebook page.
Rachel Berger, a spokeswoman for California-based National Nurses United, which represents missionary nurses, declined to comment Aug. 20 on whether nurses in states such as Florida, Nevada and Kansas were also preparing to vote on strike.
Since acquiring Mission five years ago, HCA has faced numerous problems, including nurse unionization, physician departures, patient deaths that state regulators say are a result of staffing issues, and lawsuits. Perhaps the most serious of these lawsuits are allegations by North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein that HCA violated the purchase agreement by failing to maintain levels of care in the emergency department and cancer care.
More: North Carolina Court of Appeals: Mission/HCA still has opportunity to open emergency room in South Asheville
Independent Observer: HCA collapses in purchase agreement for mission; emergency room, charitable care, Medicare
Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years and covers politics, government and other news. He has written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Have a tip? Contact Burgess at [email protected], 828-713-1095 or on Twitter @AVLreporter. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
