It’s been nearly three months since nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick went on strike, and negotiations remain at a standstill. A marathon bargaining session between the union and hospital management, overseen by a federal mediator, ran 10 hours from Sunday into early Monday morning, but the sides remain at odds over mandatory nurse-to-patient staffing ratios.
The labor struggle is the latest in a national pattern of nurses unions speaking out for better working conditions. It’s a movement that has garnered support from progressives around the country, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who chairs the influential Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee and has long called for an overhaul of the American health care system.
Sanders has called a field hearing of the committee to be held in New Brunswick on Friday, which hospital leadership has been asked to testify before.
In an interview with NJ Spotlight News, Sanders said the striking nurses are fighting for a better health care system for all. “We have a major crisis in this country in terms of health care workforce,” Sanders said. “We don’t have enough doctors, we don’t have enough mental health specialists, we don’t have enough dentists. And the crisis is especially acute for nurses. We have a major, major nursing shortage.”
— Editor’s note: RWJBarnabas Health is an underwriter of NJ Spotlight News.
