Joliet nurses authorize strike if needed

Nurses at Ascension Saint Joseph – Joliet hospital have voted to authorize a strike if needed.

“We had 87% vote yes, and we had 88% of nurses in the vote,” said Sarah Hurd, lead organizer with the Illinois Nurses Association (INA).

The vote taken this week came as negotiations continue for a new contract for union nurses at the hospital. Their contract expired July 19. The next bargaining session is Tuesday.

“We intend to bring this (vote) to our next bargaining session and put it to Ascension to take it seriously,” Hurd said.

The vote authorizes the union’s executive committee to call a strike if needed. The union must give 10-days notice before nurses can walk off the job.

“We are not putting out any notice at this time,” Hurd said. “We want to see how that next bargaining session goes.”

If a an agreement is not reached Tuesday, the next bargaining date is tentatively set for Aug. 15, Hurd said.

Nurses and Ascension are divided over pay and staffing issues. The union says the number of nurses has declined at the hospital by nearly 300 over the past five years due to non-competitive pay and working conditions.

Ascension has not responded to requests for comment on the contract talks.

Nurses at the hospital went on strike in 2020 before an agreement was reached that led to the recently expired contract. Staffing was an issue in those talks as well.

According to the INA, the number of staff nurses at the hospital has declined from 800 to about 530, and Ascension has increasingly turned to agency nurses to deal with staffing problems.