Striking Nurses ‘Risking Our Lives to Speak Out for Our Patients’

by James Parks, Nov 13, 2007

It sounds like a scene from a gangster movie, but the reality is that nurses fighting for a fair contract at Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) face the prospect of violence simply for speaking out for a fair deal and a chance to give better care to their patients.

Nearly 700 nurses, members of the United American Nurses (UAN), have been on strike since Oct. 1 at nine ARH hospitals facilities in Kentucky and West Virginia. ARH hired replacement nurses and is housing them in vacant wings of the hospitals. Now the striking nurses say the company has stepped up its efforts to intimidate them by hiring security guards who routinely harass them and use video cameras to spy on them. And more: Over the weekend, a union representative’s car was burned just minutes after he got off the picket line in Beckley, W. Va.

Here’s what happened, according to the UAN: After he left the picket line, the representative drove a short distance when he realized he had a flat tire. He returned to the picket line for assistance, and when he and others returned to his car, they found it ablaze with brush that had been doused in flammable liquid. When he attempted to report the incident to police, he was told the department was closed for the Veterans Day holiday and that a detective was not available.

The nurses are demanding the mayor provide more protection for the nurses on the line—protection the police so far have not provided.

Ocie Helton, president of the West Virginia Nurses Association/UAN local in Beckley, says:

We are stunned. Violent, threatening actions like this are beyond the pale. Registered nurses who are out on this picket line to stand up for patient care are being repaid with threats to our lives. What if next time someone is in the car that is set on fire? Working women and men are literally under attack in Beckley and risking our lives to speak out for our patients.

….We call on the police to make a full investigation of this and prosecute whoever the guilty party is to the fullest extent of the law. We also call on ARH to disavow this kind of criminal behavior and get rid of security forces that are harassing nurses on the picket lines.

The nurses did receive some good news this weekend. More than 20 nurses from across the country traveled by caravan to walk the picket lines with their sisters and brothers in Kentucky and West Virginia. In supporting their struggle, nurses from around the country said the strike is part of the broader effort by the nation’s nurses and health care workers to ensure quality care for their patients.  

After protesting at the ARH headquarters in Lexington, Ky., last Friday morning, a group of the nurses in the caravan entered the building to try to speak with ARH CEO Jerry Haynes, but they were turned away.

The nurses in the caravan are members of unions that include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), AFT and three UAN affiliates—Ohio Nurses Association, New York State Nurses Association and Washington State Nurses Association. All are affiliates of RNs Working Together, an AFL-CIO industry coordinating committee.  

The caravan is just part of the ongoing support by the union movement. On Nov. 10, AFL-CIO volunteers delivered bags of food to the strikers in Beckley, as they had a week earlier in Hazard, Ky. The AFL-CIO also donated $20,000 to provide emergency financial support for the striking nurses, with assistance given to those needing help with basic necessities like heating bills and food.  

At a recent get-out-the-vote rally in Hazard, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee gave striking nurses in the crowd a $10,000 check on behalf of his union. The CNA/NNOC also donated $10,000. 

Members of the United Steelworkers (USW) and Mine Workers (UMWA) have joined solidarity walks with the nurses to call on ARH to recognize the nurses’ freedom to call for better patient care. 

You can help out. As Thanksgiving approaches, please click here to make a donation to support the nurses.

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