AUSTIN, Texas — Collective bargaining negotiations between nurses part of National Nurses United (NNU) and Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin to address the hospital's staffing issues came to an abrupt halt Thursday afternoon.
The move was made after a group of Ascension nurses walked in to hand the director of the intensive care unit (ICU) and the director of Med-Surg for Ascension Seton their proposal for more safe staffing.
Since the nurses have not received any solutions from hospital management to fix the unsafe working conditions, they said it was time to take action.
"They've had many opportunities to settle this contract and to make the changes that need to happen for our patients, and they've chosen not to,” said Lindsay Spinney, a neonatal ICU nurse at Ascension Seton Medical Center.
Back in June, nurses at Ascension held a one-day strike to demand safer working conditions, claiming that the hospital has been chronically understaffed, affecting the quality of care they've been able to provide.
"At any point in time, a nurse could be responsible for up to possibly six patients, which is very unsafe in a critical care setting,” Spinney said.
Monica Gonzalez has worked in the neurological unit at Ascension Seton for the past 19 years. She said there hasn't been a night without caring for six patients in recent memory.
"I don't know about you, but I don't want to be the sixth patient for a nurse who doesn't have a clinical tech, a nurse aide and missing supplies,” Gonzalez said.
The nurses claim Ascension Seton has minimum staffing requirements, but it isn't even meeting those.
“We don't even believe that management's guidelines are enough, but we're not even meeting those,” Spinney said.
Nurses say they’ve been meeting with management since November about these issues and, since the strike in June, they’ve continued to meet every few weeks. But they say management has not responded to their contract.
"We've basically been trying to make these changes for years, and we've just hit a breaking point,” Spinney said.
But the nurses’ walk-in didn’t sit well with Ascension Seton. In response to the actions, Ascension Seton said:
“We have committed to negotiating with the union in good faith with mutual respect and a shared goal of reaching a fair deal... The actions taken by NNU today were unprofessional, disrespectful and in blatant violation of the decorum by which negotiations are managed.”
The quote continues to say that because of the actions of the nurses, Ascension Seton decided to cancel the bargaining session that was scheduled to take place on Thursday.
The nurses said their hand-delivered proposal surprised management because they are not usually the ones who interact in bargaining meetings.
"We only ever see the attorneys,” Gonzalez said. “We know that the directors from these units come, but they do not ever come to the table.”
But nurses say despite Ascension’s pushback, they have no intention of backing down.
"We're going to keep escalating, we're going to keep fighting,” Spinney said. “A lot of us are born and raised here. This is our community. We want to take care of our patients. We want to take care of our community, and we're just going to keep bringing awareness to this situation."
KVUE obtained the following full statement from Ascension Seton Medical Center regarding Thursday's actions:
“Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin respects our associates’ right to organize themselves through union representation. We have committed to negotiating with the union in good faith with mutual respect and a shared goal of reaching a fair deal. We have held up our end of that commitment, but, as demonstrated by the behavior of the National Nurses United (NNU) bargaining team today, unfortunately they have not. The actions taken by NNU today were unprofessional, disrespectful and in blatant violation of the decorum by which negotiations are managed. Given these antics, and with respect to the well-being of our bargaining team, we have canceled the bargaining session for today.
It is unfortunate that NNU chooses to conduct themselves in this manner and continues to focus on publicity stunts as opposed to what is important—reaching agreement at the bargaining table and doing what is right for our nurses, patients, hospital and community. Unfortunately, such antics only slow the process.
Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin is focused on reaching agreement on an initial contract for the nurses NNU represents as swiftly as possible. We remain committed to continuing to bargain in good faith and expect NNU to act with the appropriate level of professionalism at future bargaining sessions.”