Ascension St. Joseph's Nurses Overwhelmingly Reject Contract Offer

JOLIET, IL — Nurses at Ascension St. Joseph’s Hospital overwhelmingly rejected the hospital’s “best and final” contract offer in two days of voting that wrapped up Tuesday night, and are now asking that hospital officials return to the bargaining table to work toward an equitable solution to the dispute.

In the final tally, 79 percent of nurses represented by the Illinois Nurses Association union voted down the offer, which hospital officials last week said is “fair and respectful of the diverse needs of registered nurses.”

However, the union had strongly urged its more than 500 St. Joseph's nurses to reject the contract offer in the days leading up to the beginning of voting on Monday. A spokesperson for the INA said that the offer — which the hospital insisted would represent the best contract that would be made available — instead put nurses’ licenses in jeopardy and ultimately, placed patients’ lives in danger.

Nurses followed that advice in two days of voting which union spokesman John Fitzgerald told Patch on Tuesday night signaled that hospital administrators needed to bring forth a better offer despite the hospital's claims that they wouldn't be sweetening their proposal if this offer was rejected.

“We came to the table with basically all of our proposals ready and Ascension’s lawyers spent months coming to bargaining sessions with nothing prepared,” nurse and executive board member Patricia Meade said in a statement issued by the union Tuesday night. “Now they are claiming that they ‘can’t move anymore’ and don’t even want to hear our counter-proposal.”

The two parties have been in contract negotiations since May. The main issues on the table are wages and the ever-expanding demands on staff nurses. Since the contract expired over the summer nurses have gone out on two Unfair Labor Practice strikes, sounding the alarm about dangerous understaffing and the company’s failure to bargain in good faith.

Fitzgerald told Patch last week that the hospital failed to negotiate in good faith despite claims to the contrary by Ascension officials. Instead, he said that the hospital tried to ram a proposal down the throats of nurses that included below-market wages and ignored the staffing crisis that exists at the hospital.

In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, Ascension Hospital officials described the results of the nurses' voting as "unfortunate, adding that their offer was "fair and reasonable." However, the hospital said it is willing to continue to meet with union officials to discuss the benefits of its proposal, but that the the details will not change.

"Ratifying this contract would have allowed us to increase RN wage rates up to 19 percent—improving our ability to recruit and retain nurses from across the region, enhance staffing, and ultimately, provide our nurses with the recognition they deserve," the hospital's statement said.

"We must now review other options for addressing our recruitment and retention needs as we continue to provide quality care to our community."

According to the hospital, the offer included increasing entry-level wages by 19 percent in the first year of the contract. The bump in pay, the hospital says, ensures market-competitive levels of pay and aids with the recruitment of nurses. The offer would offer raises in the second and third year of the proposed deal.

The offer also included increasing middle-tier wages by nearly 17 percent in the first year of the contract, as well as raises in the second and third years of the three-year deal. Nurses with more than 30 years of experience would see an increase of their market wage by 2 percent in the first year of the proposed contract to align with other Ascension Illinois hospitals.

The nurses — as well as those with between 20 and 29 years of experience — would also see raises in the second and third year of the contract as well as be eligible for lump sum bonuses, a hospital spokesperson said.

Since working without a contract since mid-July, nurses at the Joliet hospital have engaged in a pair of two-day strikes as they continue their fight for better wages and working conditions. In August, Joliet Mayor Terry D'Arcy told striking nurses he was on their side. He said that Ascension's negotiating tactics would "force experienced nurses to look for other employment and would create turnover and unsafe conditions for the very patients they are responsible for serving."

The union said that the main sticking points include proposed wages that are below market and mandates that nurses can be pressed into working on units outside of their specialty. Nurses say Ascension has already begun the practice of moving around nurses and then pressuring them to do additional work.

It’s a dealbreaker for me because it’s unfair and unsafe,” St. Joseph's critical care nurse Jeanine Johnson said in a statement. “They say they just need you as an extra set of hands but next thing you know you’re expected to pass medications, then they are asking you to be the charge nurse and take a team.”

In the lead-up to this week's vote, nurses reported being pressured by managers and receiving repeated emails misrepresenting the language in the offer, the union said in a news release. The union is requesting that Ascension return to the bargaining table to hear its most recent counter-proposal and hopefully reach a compromise that puts the hospital back on the right track.

“When I started at this job, it was demanding but gratifying work.” nurse Beth Corsetti said in a statement released on Tuesday. “Now I have trouble sleeping on nights before I have a shift scheduled because I have such bad anxiety about what might happen.”