LISTEN TO STEPHEN FRUM
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6:55 AM Saturday morning, when Stephen Frum began the interview, he was on strike. By the time it was completed, Frum was locked out. The 19-year veteran is one of more than 1,600 nurses at Washington Hospital Center (WHC), who are represented by National Nurses United (NNU).
Nurses at WHC voted to conduct a one-day strike beginning 7:00 AM Friday and ending 7:00 AM Saturday. As nurses attempted to return to work Saturday morning, they were met by police. WHC management had locked them out.
“We have been on strike now for twenty four hours and nurses are here, ready to go back to work, ready to take care of the patients in the hospital,” said Frum. “The strike is over and now we’re in a period where unfortunately the employer is locking us out.”
WHC is owned by Columbia, Md.-based Medstar, a $4 billion not-for-profit health-care organization which owns nine hospitals in the Washington region. Of Medstar’s hospitals, only one has union nurses, WHC.
In response to the one-day strike, the company flew in 600 replacement nurses from all over the country, putting them up in hotels. WHC said it must provide these nurses with 60 hours of work, causing NNU workers to be locked out. “The union does plan to file unfair labor practice charges against the hospital,” said Frum.
Friday, at a large rally outside WHC, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discussed staffing shortages at the hospital and said nurses were often the difference between recovery and non-recovery. Frum said, “The nurses are seeking not one dime of an increase here in our labor cost. We’re looking for three years of preservation of what we have currently and [we’re] not seeking to have raises. We’re seeking to… be sure that we have adequate numbers of nurses to staff the evenings, nights, weekends, the times when patients are most vulnerable [because] there’s the fewest number of supervisors and physicians in the hospital. Experienced, dedicated nurses are the safety net… for patients during that time.”