Honk If You Support Nurses

John L. Lewis (statue at top), founder of the Appalachian Regional Healthcare hospitals, would be outraged that the chain has hired strikebreakers and anti-union consultants.

Rachele Huennekens, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is blogging and leafleting her way through the fifth day of a 10-day bus tour through Kentucky, where Steve Beshear (D) is challenging Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R), who has canceled bargaining rights for state employees and taken other anti-worker stands. Dozens of local labor leaders and union volunteers are taking part in the Bluegrass Express tour, which yesterday stopped to support striking nurses, members of the United American Nurses (UAN), at Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) hospitals. Nearly 700 nurses are on strike at the hospitals in West Virginia and Kentucky.It was first and foremost an amazing sound. At each stop of the Bluegrass Express tour yesterday, we could hear the nurses’ picket lines in front of the Appalachian Regional Healthcare hospitals before we saw them.In Middlesboro, Harlan, Whitesburg and Hazard, the nurses’ chants and supporters’ car honks were deafening:

Hey hey, ho ho, (CEO) Jerry Haynes has got to go!

Fired up, can’t take it no more! We’re fired up, can’t take it no more!

Honk, honk, honnnnnnnnnnnk!

Second, it was an amazing sight. The nurses, members of the Kentucky Nurses Association/United American Nurses (UAN), packed the picket lines, wearing a rainbow of t-shirts. There were red ones saying “RNs for Safety;” white ones with “United We Bargain, Divided We Beg” and black ones with a picture of a viper saying, “When Provoked, Will Strike!”

Their colorful signs asserted: “This is a strike for patient care” and “We are asking for safe staffing for us, for you.”

The nurses had erected brightly colored tents, while in the background, the hospitals loomed large, sprawling brick-and-glass structures. In the large parking lots, burly armed private security guards roamed, keeping an eye on the line.

And framing the scene—the warm blues and grays of the Appalachian mountains in breathtaking fall colors.

At each stop on the tour, we learned a lot about the strike, which began Oct. 1. The nurses’ primary concerns center on patient care, and they are seeking a new contract that addresses unsafe staffing levels, excessive overtime hours and lack of basic hygiene and adequate equipment.

The hospital chain, founded and consecrated nearly 100 years ago by John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers, now employs union-busting “consultants,” hired weeks before negotiations even began. The hospital hired “replacement” nurses from a Lexington agency, and despite finding the time to buy hundreds of statewide radio and TV ads promoting its image, has not sent representatives to meet with the nurses to negotiate more than a few times.

The conclusion is clear: The intention of the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System is to bust the Kentucky Nurses Association.

But there is another conclusion to be drawn. Despite all the hardships and struggle, we saw how the picket lines are holding strong, with the community 100 percent behind the nurses. Signs of support include thousands of passersby and hospital employees honking their support and the involvement by local media and local elected officials in the strike.

Also, members of the UAW, the United Transportation Union (UTU), the UMWA, the Nurses Professional Organization and all the other AFL-CIO unions who are standing in solidarity with the nurses provide strong testament that these striking nurses will prevail.

As one of the signs on the picket line says:

Patient care, not corporate greed. Nurses united, we will succeed!

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