Ascension will not allow nurses to return to work for 4 days after another 1-day strike
Hundreds of nurses at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis and St. Joseph in Wichita will not be allowed to return to work for four days after a planned one-day strike for the second time this year.
Last week, the National Nurses United, the union representing Ascension nurses in Wichita, announced a one-day strike for Wednesday Dec. 6. It is scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. Dec. 6 and end at 7 a.m. Dec. 7, the union told Ascension.
This marks the second one-day strike this year and comes amid the first contract negotiations at those hospitals after nurses voted to unionize. Nurses contend they are protesting unsafe working conditions that “management has failed to remedy,” according to a union news release.
“Management is floating nurses all over the hospital without regard to their competencies or clinical specialties,” Marvin Ruckle, a nurse in the NICU at St. Joseph Hospital, said in a news release. “Before we unionized, a neonatal ICU nurse would be floated to work in the adult psychiatric unit, which is completely outside that RN’s area of expertise. We want to limit these unsafe floating practices and ensure that nurses are only floated to units where they have current competencies to perform the job well.”
On Tuesday, Ascension said nurses who participate in the one-day strike next week will not be allowed to return and will temporarily be replaced by staffing agency contracted nurses.
“Our hospitals are well prepared to remain open and care for our patients during this short-term strike,” Ascension said. “In order to fulfill our commitment to uninterrupted quality care for our patients, we have contracted with a staffing agency that specializes in work stoppage events and will provide us access to a full complement of highly skilled and credentialed registered nurses.”
Nurses who choose to work on Dec. 6 will not be replaced. Nurses who strike will be allowed to return to their scheduled shifts beginning the morning of Dec. 10.
“Any registered nurses who work the day of the strike will also work their regularly scheduled shifts during the contractual replacement period,” Ascension said.
Nurses were not allowed to return to work for three days the first time they went on a one-day strike in June 2023, The Eagle previously reported.
About 1,600 nurses represented by the union will go on strike on Dec. 6. That number includes 900 nurses at the Wichita facilities and 700 at Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, according to the union.
Ascension, a Catholic, not-for-profit health care system, is one of the largest health care systems in the country, with roughly 139,000 employees and hospitals in about 19 states. The company had more than $1 billion in cash in the fiscal year ending June 30.
This story was originally published November 28, 2023 at 4:01 PM.