Striking RWJ Nurses Have Until Tuesday To Make Decision, Mediators Say

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — The approximately 1,700 nurses on strike at New Brunswick's Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital must decide by next Tuesday, Sept. 19 if they will:

• Return to work and submit the dispute to binding arbitration. This is where both sides would agree to give a federal arbitrator authority to set the terms for a new nurses' contract, and would agree to whatever the arbitrator comes up with.
• Accept the terms of the contract the hospital proposed to the union on Aug. 2.

These were the options presented by federal mediators who have jurisdiction over the strike. The hospital and the union met with these federal mediators Wednesday, in a meeting that lasted for six hours and was their first meeting since August.

The mediators presented the nurses' union with those choices.

Or, the nurses could simply decide to remain on strike. The strike has now lasted more than six weeks, longer than any nursing strike in RWJ history.

"The cost of the strike is too great for it to continue indefinitely," said hospital spokeswoman Wendy Gottsegen Thursday.

RWJ already said it has spent "millions" flying in fill-in nurses from out of state, and putting them up at New Brunswick hotels.

"This nursing strike has significant economic consequences for both us and for our nurses. We have already paid more than $54 million for our replacement nurses," said RWJ University Hospital president Alan Lee, in this public letter the hospital published Sept. 14 about the strike.

"The strike must end," said Gottsegen.

The leaders of the nurses' union, part of United Steel Workers Local 4-200, said they would present the mediators' choices to their members and let the hospital know on Tuesday.

The hospital says it proposed entering into binding arbitration in July.

The nurses first walked off the job Aug. 4; they are asking for pay raises, more nurses hired and a cap on health insurance payments.

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