1,500 Temple University nurses, health professionals strike over work rule, tuition perk

Temple nurses strike over work rule, tuition perk

PHILADELPHIA — Hundreds of striking Temple University Hospital nurses and other employees rallied Tuesday in an effort to restart bargaining stalled over contract language that workers say would jeopardize patients, limit free speech and take away a crucial college tuition benefit.

The two sides did end up meeting Tuesday, at the request of a state mediator, in the first discussions since before the strike started last week, hospital CEO Sandy Gomberg said. A follow-up meeting may be scheduled later, she said.

About 1,000 nurses and 500 professional health workers have been picketing the hospital since March 31 over its attempt to eliminate the longstanding benefit of free tuition for employees’ children.

They are also resisting proposed “non-disparagement” language in their contracts — workers call it a “gag clause” — which would restrict union members from publicly criticizing the hospital or its managers.

“The gag clause is offensive,” Patricia Eakin, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, said Tuesday. “We are the voice of the patient.”

Nurses say the clause would have a chilling effect on patient advocacy, and that the language is so broad as to restrict testimony before legislative health care panels or even comments on their Facebook pages.

Gomberg said nurses will still be expected to voice concerns about patient care within the hospital, where she noted there are various ways to address health care quality.

The proposed restriction is directed specifically at the union because of its history of “disparaging the hospital and its business practices” in internal publications and to the media, Gomberg said.

William Cruice, the union’s executive director, said hospital administrators should not be so thin-skinned.

“If you can’t accept criticism of your policy priorities, maybe you shouldn’t be in this job,” Cruice said. “It comes with the territory.”

The clause also raised questions for Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, who called it “simply dressing up a gag order in fancy clothes.”

“This seems like it really shuts down all employees’ ability to speak about problems with the administration or the delivery of health care,” Walczak said. “That should be of concern to everyone.”

The union also is angry about the potential loss of the tuition perk. Workers say it is a key recruiting and retention tool for the busy urban hospital in gritty North Philadelphia, which handled nearly 66,000 emergency room visits last year.

Gomberg said the benefit — free tuition at Temple, or a $7,000 credit to another university — has already been eliminated for children of the hospital’s other 3,500 employees. It is not a competitive perk regionally because the area’s many non-university-affiliated hospitals don’t offer it, she said.

Throughout Temple’s health system, about 400 workers out of 6,450 used the benefit at a cost of $5.5 million; the hospital wants to redirect those funds toward patient care, Gomberg said. Workers themselves still get free tuition, she noted.

Temple tried to unilaterally eliminate the perk in March 2009, before the contracts expired Sept. 30. The union protested, and the state Labor Relations Board ruled in January that the hospital had to bargain the change.

The ruling came too late for Alicia Garcia, a Temple nurse for 30 years, who said she found herself “scrambling” to come up with money for her daughter’s sophomore year at Temple last fall.

Her daughter could have pursued scholarships in New Jersey but chose Temple because of the benefit, said Garcia. Now she has a loan.

“The way it was done, we have to come up with this money right away,” Garcia said Monday. “Temple just yanked it out.”

The hospital offered to rescind the non-disparagement clause if workers accepted the rest of the contract offers, which Gomberg called “fair, reasonable and competitive.”

The nurses are seeking a 14.5 percent increase over four years; the hospital has offered 4 percent over three years. The health professionals are seeking 14.5 percent over four years; the hospital has offered 6.5 percent in the same period.

Temple is using 850 temporary workers to keep the building running during the dispute. The facility is operating normally, Gomberg said.

Steve Coyle, a physician’s assistant on the picket line Tuesday, said employees want to get back to work.

“We miss our patients so much,” Coyle said. “We just want to get back in there and help them.”

Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals: www.pennanurses.org

Temple University Hospital: www.templehealth.org