Nurses on Strike

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CBS NEWS REPORT:

NURSES ON STRIKE!

Jeff Rossen's Report which aired on the CBS Morning News can be seen on video at the CBS News website:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WA...601_strike.html

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Update From the St Catherines Nurses on Strike:

The following emails came today from our NYSNA headquarters as part of the mail they are receiving from around the country from nurses championing our cause, read on:

**I have written a letter to the Smithtown Messenger and Bill O'Reilly at Fox

News. I will write one to each of the other newspaper listed. This is an

excellent site for info, I will continue to monitor it for ways that I can

help and encourage my fellow TEXAS Nurses to do the same.

Hang in there, we are behind you all the way.

Paula Perry RN

Tx

**Dearest colleagues,

I wish you all of the best in your pursuit of fair treatment. May God be with you in your struggle. As a nurse for almost 15 years, I can easily appreciate your plight. Stay the course. There are so many of us out here who are pulling for you.

Enid Kreiner, RNC

Hanover,PA

**As a fellow RN I understand and appreciate all you are fighting for. I want to wish you all the best. I hope and pray you all continue to stick together. I feel the RNs of St. Catherine's are wonderful. I recently gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in Sept and we both recovered wonderfully, thanks to the NURSING STAFF.

Good luck with the negotiations on Tues.12/11. You are in our prayers.

Jessica Dempsey, RN

What more can I say, but Good Night,

BC>>>>>>>>>>>

more to come.

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Disgraceful, isnt it?

St Catherines is a mid-sized suburban community acute care hospital with 475 RNs on staff. The improvements they need in their contract would cost $500,000 per year. The hospital claims it cant afford it. HOWEVER, in the first 2 WEEKS of the strike, it had already shelled out over $600,000 to the scab agency just for nurse strike-breakers. They are now past their 5th week & the hospital will not come back to the table yet. I wonder if any of those businessmen with their fancy MBA degrees can do the math. The nurses are working.......elsewhere. I dont think those numbers-crunchers the hospital has on staff are though.

Heres a letter that hits it right on the mark. It appeared in a local newspaper & was sent by an influential community leader:

Striking for Wage Equality:

I am glad Newsday covered the strike at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center ["Hospital: Strike Hasn't Hobbled Us," Dec. 22]. It is so easy to forget a strike when it is out of view.

The article reminded me once again of the systemic acceptance of wage discrimination against women (and minorities). Think about our working and living in a "supply and demand" world. Why is it that these nurses are in such high demand, yet they must beg for wages and benefits?

I think it is likely because they are in a profession dominated by women. Too many employers are still thinking of women as working for pin money. Yet studies have found that one-third of working women are single heads of households and half or more are contributing equally to their families' survival.

When will employers accept this? When will supply and demand truly set the wages and not gender (or even race)? It is time for Albany to pass and sign into state law wage equality bills that really work. This is, after all, a human rights issue and, more importantly, a family issue.

The governor's race is around the corner and so are thousands of voting women. (In fact the majority of the voting public is female.) It's time this issue was addressed.

If the hospital isn't "hobbled" by the high cost of replacement nurses, then why not treat the striking nurses right in the first place?

Kim Nowakowski

East Islip, LI

Editor's Note: The writer is vice president of Business and Professional Women of Deer Park.>>>>>>>

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/letters/ny-vpltr312529433dec31.story