St. Joe's Nurses File Lawsuit, 'That’s Textbook Wage Theft:' Lawyer

JOLIET, IL — The Illinois Nurses Association issued a press release on Tuesday announcing that on the heels of their third strike against healthcare giant Ascension, a class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of more than 90 nurses at the St. Joe's hospital who experienced wage theft last fall.

The lawsuit at Will County's Courthouse alleges that nurses Kaitlynd French, Beth Corsetti and their coworkers were not paid wages they earned during the lead up to a lockout in November.

“The silver lining of Joe’s being understaffed is that you can always make some extra money picking up ‘incentive shifts,’” nurse and plaintiff Kaitlynd French remarked in Tuesday's press release. “After our last strike and lockout, the incentive shifts were paid out so nurses took on hours of extra work with no idea that they wouldn’t be compensated.”

Represented by the law firm of Despres, Schwartz and Geoghegan Ltd., the nurses are suing Ascension Health under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act. According to their complaint, Ascension Health entered into agreements with nurses to pay them extra to work shifts beyond their normal schedule and then refused to pay them after those shifts had already been worked.

The Illinois Nurses Association noted that "Ascension Saint Joseph has struggled for years to hire enough nurses to function. This has led to a reliance on existing nurses taking on shifts above their full-time load in exchange for extra incentive pay to keep the hospital functioning. Nurses were locked out of the hospital for four days around the Thanksgiving holiday in retaliation for the union calling a two-day strike. During the pay period that included the strike and lockout, nurses were encouraged to work incentive shifts, as they did during most pay periods.

“Only after the nurses had worked the agreed shifts did the employer announce that they would not pay them as agreed," plaintiff's lawyer Will Bloom said in Tuesday's press release. "That’s textbook wage theft.”

Separately from this lawsuit, the Illinois Nurses Association said that the St. Joe's nurses will continue negotiations with Ascension representatives in the hopes of reaching a contract that will retain and recruit talent to the hospital.

While many of the terms of the contract have been settled, distance remains between the employer’s offer and the market rate on wages. Policies around unsafe reassignment of nurses outside of their scope of practice have also prevented a deal from being ratified by the membership, the nurses union pointed out.