According to the union, UChicago nurses have been negotiating with management since October for a new contract.
“We don’t take the decision to strike lightly,” Amber Turi, a UChicago Medicine registered nurse in the medical intensive care unit, said in a statement. “But management has made clear that this is a necessary step to demonstrate how committed we are to improving safety and staffing in our new contract."
Nurses from UChicago’s flagship hospital in Hyde Park, as well as Comer Children’s Hospital, Mitchell Hospital and several clinics, will be on strike, the union said. Most of the picketing will take place along 59th Street between Maryland and Cottage Grove avenues.
“While we are disappointed in the NNU’s decision to take this action, we are committed to continuing negotiations in hopes of reaching an agreement and avoiding a strike,” Lorna Wong, a spokesperson for the University of Chicago Medical Center, said in a statement to Crain’s.
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Even though it is possible a strike is avoided if union and UChicago Medicine leaders come to an agreement before March 14, UChicago has contracted with hundreds of replacement nurses to fill in for nurses on strike, Wong said.
"Our focus will be on serving our patients without disruption during this period,” she added.
In recent years, understaffing complaints have surfaced among nurses at several Chicago hospitals. Nurses at Ascension St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet went on strike in February for the third time in a year over staffing concerns and other issues.
Staffing problems at hospitals in Chicago and elsewhere were intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed many healthcare workers out of the industry for good. Since then, hospital leaders have complained about a widespread nursing shortage, saying it is more difficult to find and hire nurses. At the same time, hospitals have struggled to keep up with recent nursing wage inflation.
In the meantime, nurses have reported struggling to do their jobs on thin staffs, which has, in part, led to recent strikes. The challenges of working in understaffed settings has also contributed to continued to turnover in the profession.
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A recent report from the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Economic Policy Institute found that 34% of Illinois nurses plan to leave the profession in the next 12 months, primarily because of unsafe staffing levels and unresolved moral distress. Almost all — 98% — respondents said unsafe staffing was a reason they would consider leaving the profession.
That’s disturbing news for Illinois, which is already expected to be short 15,000 registered nurses by 2025.
This story first appeared in Crain's Chicago Business.