By John George – Senior
Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
Aug 26,
2019, 6:46am EDT Updated a day ago
The
nearly 800 registered nurses at St. May Medical Center in Bucks County have
voted to unionize and be represented by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff
Nurses and Allied Health Professionals.
Among
the nurses who cast ballots in the two-day election that ended Friday night,
the vote was 403 to 285 in support of joining the union
Based
in Conshohocken, PASNAP represents more than 8,000 nurses and health-care
professionals across the state.
“As
health care has deteriorated to health business, nurses have had to bear the
weight of the cuts in staffing and resources” said Joe Gentile,
a nurse at St. Mary in Langhorne. “Now more than ever, we need to unify and
advocate for each other. I’ve worked at St. Mary for over 35 years. This is my
hospital, my home and my community. This hard-fought victory has given us a
voice, a hope, and a future.”
St.
Mary is part Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, which is also the parent company for
Mercy Catholic Medical Center, which has campuses in Darby and West
Philadelphia; Nazareth Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia; and Saint Francis
Hospital in Wilmington.
Trinity
Health, based in Livonia, Michigan, is one of the largest Catholic health
systems in the country. It operates 94 hospitals and 109 continuing-care
facilities that serve more than 30 million people across 22 states.
When
asked about the union vote, Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic responded with a
statement that read: “The election gave nurses the right to choose whether to
work directly with nursing leadership as they have in the past, or to have
PASNAP act as their exclusive agent on issues of pay and benefits. Nurses were
split on the issue, with strong feelings on both sides, but by a 58% to 42%
margin, voters chose to change the historical relationship and let PASNAP be
their negotiator. “
There
are still legal issues to resolve that could alter that outcome, and the
parties have a week to consider their options,” the statement continued. “If
the result of the vote becomes legally binding, the relationship between the
union and the hospital follows a legally prescribed path of bargaining to see
if they can agree on a contract, and we expect that process to begin sometime
this fall. Nurses who do not wish to be represented by PASNAP must wait at
least a year before exercising their right to ask for another election to
reconsider their choice, which could happen if the parties fail to reach an agreement
for more than a year.”
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