‘These are people’s lives we’re dealing with,’ say AGH nurses seeking new contract

Natalya Rodriguez, a registered nurse at Allegheny General Hospital and a member of her union’s negotiating committee, paused during a break in a Friday bargaining session to point out what she says is key for her and her colleagues.

“People forget about the patient,” she said. “It’s the nurse who sits with the patient every day, who knows their children, their grandchildren, their wives, their husbands. We clean them, bathe them, give them medication. These are people’s lives we’re dealing with. That gets forgotten; the little person gets forgotten. It’s our job as nurses to remind people of that. We’re here for the patients.”

Nurses at Allegheny General will rally at noon Tuesday at Allegheny Commons Park on the North Side, across from AGH, as part of their effort to reach a deal with Allegheny Health Network. The nurses and nurse practitioners, represented by SEIU Healthcare, announced last week that they’d voted overwhelmingly to give their negotiating committee the authority to deliver a strike notice if AHN executives fail to adequately address the nurses’ demands. The nurses are continuing to work under their old contract while negotiations continue.

During a news conference at the City-County Building, Downtown, in late August, nurses detailed their struggles with inadequate pay, understaffing and high turnover. Jeff Shook, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, discussed a research project that found nurses experienced high levels of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal ideations.

AGH nurses are seeking a $40-an-hour minimum wage for nurses and a significant increase for mid-career and senior nurses. 

Rodriguez said executives are out of touch with those who care for patients under the current conditions.

“It all stems from staffing,” she said. “It’s a huge problem — lack of staffing, lack of time with patients. We don’t have time to give them the care they need. You’re running around, taking care of eight people with no management and no help.”

The nurses’ negotiations with AGH are taking place at a time when workers across several industries are beginning to flex their collective muscle. Writers, actors, journalists and autoworkers are among the workers who have called strikes in the past several months. Earlier in October, 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente in California began the largest health care strike in U.S. history before reaching a tentative deal calling for a 21% raise over the life of their new contract.