Trumka: Temple Takes Taxpayer $$, Should Treat Workers Better

by Tula Connell, Mar 19, 2010

In Philadelphia this morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Bill George in pledging the union movement’s support for an impending strike by Temple University Hospital’s 1,500 nurses and professional and technical employees. Shortly before the press event, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) delivered a 10-day strike notice to the hospital.

Employees have been working without a contract since September, and Maureen May, RN, president of the Temple unions, says management:

has refused to even discuss our demands for safe staffing and hasn’t budged on its demands for massive concessions, choosing instead to engage in bad faith bargaining. Our members are the backbone of Temple University Hospital and we will strike if we must to force them to give us the respect we deserve.

Trumka put it this way:

We will not allow Temple Hospital, an institution supported by taxpayer funds, to thumb their noses at these workers or the union movement. And we’re going to enlist the help of political leaders who consistently support Temple’s repeated requests for additional funding.

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