More than 700 nurses at Joliet hospital strike

More than 700 nurses at Amita Health Saint Joseph Medical Center Joliet went on strike Saturday morning, after the nurses union and hospital failed to reach a contract agreement.

The nurses at Amita Health Saint Joseph Medical Center Joliet have been working without a contract since May 9 and have been in negotiations since February.

The nurses’ union, the Illinois Nurses Association, has not said how long the strike would last. In a news release Saturday, the union said nurses would picket outside the hospital at 333 Madison St., in Joliet.

Amita Health, which has 19 hospitals in Illinois, has contracted with an agency to provide temporary nurses, according to spokesman Tim Nelson.

The hospital transferred a “minimum number of patients” to Amita Health Adventist Medical Center Hinsdale before the strike, Nelson said in an email Saturday. He said the health system is ready to continue contract negotiations in good faith with the nurses, and the hospital is “prepared to provide uninterrupted, high quality care and service throughout” the strike.

A main sticking point in the contract negotiations include nurse staffing levels that the nurses say are unsafe.

Nelson said hospital negotiators presented the union with an offer Friday that the system felt addressed many of the nurses’ concerns.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe economic impact on hospitals and health systems throughout the United States, and AMITA Health is no different,” Nelson said. “We have supported all our associates in many ways throughout the pandemic, including pay continuance and temporary premium pay for our frontline workers most affected, but like other health systems we have had to make some difficult decisions.”

The strike comes as hospitals across the country continue to deal with financial fallout from COVID-19, which required cancellations of elective surgeries and led to fewer non-COVID-19 patients.

Nurses at a number of U.S. hospitals have gone on strike in recent years, often citing staffing levels as a major concern.

Last year, more than 2,200 nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center went on strike, seeking better nurse staffing despite the hospital’s position that its staffing levels were safe. That strike lasted one day but was followed by a four-day lockout. Those nurses were part of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/ National Nurses United.