NJ Nurses Demand New Contract; Hundreds Rally At Belleville Hospital

BELLEVILLE, NJ — Hundreds of unionized nurses and their supporters gathered for a rally outside of Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville last weekend amid ongoing contract negotiations with the hospital.

Nearly a year ago, about 540 registered nurses (RNs) at Clara Maass – a RWJBarnabas Health facility – voted to form a union with 1199SEIU. Almost eight in 10 nurses were in favor of unionizing. Spokespeople said that “safe staffing,” job security, pay and benefits were among the most important issues.

According to 1199SEIU, the newly unionized health care workers are now trying to land their first work contract – but they’re hitting a brick wall.

“For months, talks at the bargaining table have been unproductive, with management refusing nurses’ pleas for greater input on patient care and staffing concerns,” union leaders reported last week.

Hospital administrators have maintained that they’re trying to bargain in good faith, and have called some of the union’s claims – including the recent suspension of nine nurses – “inaccurate” and “disingenuous.”

A Clara Maass spokesperson told Patch that RWJBarnabas “always has been and always will be a union-friendly organization that values our nurses, their hard work, and their dedication to our patients.”

He added:

“It is because we value, recognize and respect our Clara Maass nurses that we immediately offered an average 8.8 percent market wage increase at our very first negotiation session back in October. For nine months, the union has rejected our offer and denied our nurses raises that we believe they have earned and deserve. We hope the union will reconsider our offer to increase nurses’ pay so these increases can go into effect as soon as possible. We have and will continue to negotiate with the union in good faith with the goal of reaching a fair and amicable resolution.”

But 1199SEIU spokespeople have argued that the hospital’s offer is still a bad deal for nurses.

“When nurses proposed the creation of a labor-management committee as a forum to address workplace issues, Clara Maass said they did not need one because management know what is best for the hospital—thereby denying the value of nurses' professional experience in providing front-line care,” 1199SEIU stated.

“Management has also rejected proposals to establish basic quality-of-life benefits for nurses to care for their children and promote their own professional development, including 1199’s Child Care Fund and Training and Education Fund which require minimal investment by the employer,” the union said.

Union spokespeople said that earlier this year, tens of thousands of RNs just miles away in New York City — members of 1199SEIU and NYSNA — won collective bargaining agreements that provide annual wage increases of 7%, 6%, and 5%, while maintaining “far superior benefits and labor-management partnership.”

“This has increased the already significant disparities between RN jobs in New Jersey and New York, and created further urgency to close this gap to retain the pool of nurses working in the Garden State,” 1199SEIU said.

• See Related: NJ Nurses Say They're Overworked, Demand 'Safe Staffing' Law

“When we put our lives and our families’ lives on the line during the pandemic, management hailed us as ‘heroes,’” said Barbara Villanueva, an ICU nurse at the hospital.

“Now, these feel like empty words,” Villanueva said.

Nola Ramphal-Mohammed, another registered nurse at Clara Maass, said nurses have been working without meals and adequate rest breaks due to “chronic understaffing.”

“Faced with staffing conditions that could place our licenses and our patients at risk, many nurses have made the difficult decision to leave,” Ramphal-Mohammed said. “We have made contract proposals that would enable the nurses to have meaningful input to improve staffing, but time and time again, management has said no.”

• See Related: Tensions Rise At Clara Maass Hospital As NJ Nurses Rally For Contracts
• See Related: Contract Talks At Clara Maass Hospital Hitting Standstill, Union Says

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