Nurses, radiology technicians and other medical staff picketed Wednesday outside Jeanes Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center, warning of a possible strike if negotiations with Temple University’s health system fail to advance.
A primary concern is staffing, an issue Temple has refused to address during negotiations, said Angie Cleghorn, co-president of Jeanes Nurses United and a long-time intensive care unit nurse.
“Staffing is the right thing to do, but every nurse they short a unit with is a profit for them,” she told Metro. “I think they’re putting profits over patients.”
Kristy Emmett, a Fox Chase tech, said long wait times have become the norm at the center, which shares a campus with Jeanes adjacent to Burholme Park in Northeast Philadelphia.
“We had patients waiting – cancer patients who are extremely sick and not feeling well and having bad days – waiting for three to four hours for their CAT scans,” Emmett said during a rally Wednesday. “On top of that, we don’t have the room to house that many people just sitting around on top of each other in the waiting areas.”
About 1,000 Temple Health employees, including nurses and nurse practitioners at the system’s clinics and university research nurses, are negotiating contracts. All are affiliated with the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals.
Salary has been another sticking point in talks, with Cleghorn saying Temple has offered a 2% raise, equivalent to an extra dollar an hour for an experienced nurse. Staff have also been pushing for more security protections for healthcare workers.
Many of the union proposals are based on the terms laid out in a contract ratified in November 2022 by employees at Temple University’s main hospital in North Philadelphia, according to PASNAP.
Temple Health declined to comment on the demonstration or the ongoing negotiations.
Jeanes’s collective bargaining agreement expired Nov. 7, while the contracts for the clinic and research nurses expired at the end of September. Fox Chase nurses and techs unionized in June and are pushing for their first CBA.
On Wednesday, off-duty healthcare workers carried signs – some reading “If nurses are outside, there’s something wrong on the inside” – along Central Avenue between the entrances to the two medical centers. Picketing also occurred outside Temple’s main hospital.
Union leaders from Einstein, Lower Bucks, St. Mary’s and Chestnut Hill hospitals joined the rally. Nurses and techs at Chestnut Hill, also part of Temple’s system, voted to unionize with PASNAP earlier this week.
“How quickly we forget,” City Councilmember Jim Harrity told union members. “It wasn’t too long ago that we were praising you for all the stuff you did during COVID. How you kept us safe, while putting yourself in harm’s way. So now it’s time for management to do the right thing and give you a fair contract.”
