Nurses working for UW Health hospitals and clinics in Madison have voted to stage a three-day strike in September if the hospital system’s management does not recognize their union.
The nurses conducted the strike vote in a pair of Zoom meetings late Wednesday. In an announcement Thursday morning, they said a walkout, if it takes place, would begin Sept. 13 and end Sept. 17 and would be preceded by a 10-day notice “so the administration can make preparations to ensure patient safety.”
In a statement Thursday, UW Health called the strike vote “disappointing” and said the hospital system’s ability to recognize the union was a matter of legal dispute.
More than 1,500 of the 2,600 nurses employed by UW Health — officially the UW Hospital and Clinics — have signed cards in support of being represented by SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin, part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), according to the union.
The union organizing drive has been underway since 2019 and is the largest in Wisconsin in recent memory. UW Health management has refused to consider recognizing the union, maintaining that was forbidden under state law — an interpretation that has since been disputed by outside legal analysts.
While the union campaign began before the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses supporting the union say the pandemic worsened conditions that led them to seek union representation, including staffing, scheduling and a voice in how decisions affecting patient care are made.
Although UW Health officials in public statements have pointed to a system of employee councils for gaining participation from nurses and other health care employees, nurses who are involved in the union drive have said those vehicles ignore their most important concerns.
“We’re striking to put an end to the vicious cycle of understaffing and burnout and to win a union voice so we can protect the health of our patients and each other,” said UW Health nurse Tami Burns in a statement the union distributed Thursday.
UW Health employees’ collective bargaining rights were enshrined in Wisconsin law when the hospital system was made a separate corporate entity from the University of Wisconsin in 1995. A 2011 law known as Act 10, however, enacted under then-Gov. Scott Walker and stripping most public employees of most of their union rights, also deleted the union-rights language for employees of the UW Hospital and Clinics Authority.
The hospital authority management cited Act 10 when the system’s leaders refused to renew union contracts in 2014 after they expired.
When the union organizing drive began in 2019, the nurses and SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin were operating under the belief that their union rights had been limited under Act 10 as well and focused on seeking a voluntary, advisory relationship with UW Health management.
Starting a year ago, however, a series of legal analyses challenged that interpretation of the law. A memo by union lawyers and a subsequent one from the nonpartisan Legislative Council both found that state law removed the previous guarantee of union rights. But both memos concluded that the law does not forbid UW Health from recognizing unions, because hospital systems are not public employees, whose collective bargaining rights were strictly limited by Act 10.
In June, Attorney General Josh Kaul issued a legal opinion that concurred with the two previous analyses and found that state law does not bar UW Health from engaging with unions. Kaul’s opinion also said that UW Health might be bound by state laws ensuring union rights for private sector employees in Wisconsin, but acknowledged that it was “not conclusive” on that possibility.
This story is developing and will be updated.
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originally published at https%3A%2F%2Fwisconsinexaminer.com%2F2022%2F08%2F25%2Fuw-health-nurses-vote-for-3-day-walkout-in-september-to-gain-union-rights%2F by Erik Gunn
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