Nurses at Ascension Joliet hospital say staffing remains major issue for contract

Union nurses at Ascension Saint Joseph–Joliet hospital approach the one-year mark since contract talks began not knowing if they are any closer to an agreement than when bargaining began on May 9, 2023.

“It seems like it’s never going to end,” nurse Valerie Lynch said Wednesday as she joined an informational picket outside the hospital, one of several demonstrations by nurses in the past year that has included three two-day strikes and three two-day lockouts.

The nurses’ contract expired July 21, 2023, but the contract standoff has not been in vain, Lynch said.

“I think we’ve kind of shown them that we’re not going to be pushed around, and that’s why we’ve seen the little bit of movement that we have seen,” she said.

Nurses did get raises in March when Ascension implemented what it called its last, best and final offer, even though the union did not agree to the proposal and contract talks have continued since.

Ascension in an emailed statement said the new pay scale has improved recruitment and retention of nurses.

“We are hiring nurses and will continue our focus to ensure we have the appropriate staffing to serve our community,” Colleen Pawlik, interim chief nursing officer and vice president of operations, said in an emailed statement.

Nurses, however, said the staffing situation has gotten worse.

As Ascension has hired new nurses, many of whom still need training for the job, they have let go of contracted agency nurses with experience at the hospital, according to the nurses.

Patient-nurse ratios keep going up, said nurse Donna Gholson.

“They keep telling the nurses at the bedside that this is the new normal. Get used to it,” Gholson said.

Last month, nurses in one unit refused to sign in for work when they were told they would have 10 patients to a nurse, an unusually high ratio, Gholson said. The situation was resolved when the administration found another nurse to work the shift, she said.

Staffing levels have been one of the big issues in the contract talks. So have pay raises for senior nurses at the hospital.

“They’d like us to move on because obviously we’re the most vocal,” said Gholson, a nurse at Saint Joseph for 33 years.

Standoff goes on

Gholson began working at the hospital in the 1990s when nurses unionized with the Illinois Nurses Association and held a strike primarily to get contract language that gave them some say over how nurses could be pulled off of one unit to another.

That battle is being fought again with Ascension increasingly moving nurses out of units where they have expertise into those where they don’t, Gholson said.

The movement of nurses outside their areas of expertise and low staffing levels are issues that the union has repeatedly said affect patient safety along with working conditions.

Ascension in its emailed response to the The Herald-News did not directly respond to questions about what impact the contract stand-off has had on the hospital and its image.

“We remain focused on ensuring ongoing access to the quality health care our community deserves,” Pawlik said.

Ascension this week also would not say how many new nurses have been hired and how many now work at the hospital.

In early April, Ascension announced that a new pay scale it implemented in March in what it called its final offer led to the hiring of 78 nurses. The union checked the list and said it found Ascension was counting nurses who transferred to other positions in the hospital, including nurses hired as far back as 1989.

The actual number of new nurses hired was 48, said John Fitzgerald, chief negotiator for the union.

“The staffing is not any better than it’s been in 18 months,” Fitzgerald said.

Union nurses gained some hope when Barbara Martin, the president at Ascension Saint Joseph–Joliet since February, joined a bargaining session Monday.

A local management presence at the contract talks is rare, according to the union. The talks are not held in person, and the Ascension team meets online while negotiating contracts at other hospitals at the same time, Fitzgerald said.

Martin, according to the union, urged the two sides get together again Tuesday, pushing up the negotiation schedule to a date that is two days ahead of the one year mark since the start of negotiations.

Whether that’s any indication that the two sides may be closer to an agreement, Fitzgerald said, “I’d be reading tea leaves.”

Timeline of contract dispute

• May 9, 2023: First bargaining session between Ascension and Illinois Nurses Association.

• July 21, 2023: Nurses contract expires, talks continue.

• Aug. 22, 2023: Nurses start two-day strike followed by two-day lockout by Ascension, which said its contract for replacement nurses requires they be on the job at least four days.

• Nov. 21, 2023: Nurses start a second two-day strike followed by two-day lockout by Ascension.

• Dec. 20, 2023: Nurses by an 87% majority reject contract offer from Ascension that included double-digit pay increases for starting and mid-tier nurses.

• Jan. 9, 2024: Ascension announces it will implement what it called its last, best and final offer with double-digit pay increases for starting and mid-tier nurses in March.

• Feb. 8, 2024: Nurses start third two-day strike, followed by two-day lockout, alleging unfair labor practice in Ascension’s implementation of new contract terms rejected by union.