Striking Nurses Approve New Pact with Appalachian Regional Healthcare

by James Parks, Dec 23, 2007

Striking nurses in West Virginia and Kentucky yesterday approved a new tentative agreement that could send them back to work soon.

Nearly 700 members of the United American Nurses (UAN) union have been on strike at nine Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) hospitals since Oct. 1. The UAN members are seeking a contract with safer staffing levels and higher patient care standards. The nurses are concerned that management’s staffing decisions and rampant mandatory overtime are preventing them from giving patients the best possible care.

ARH hired replacement nurses and housed them in vacant wings of the hospitals. A statement from the nurses says most workers will be called back to work by the end of January. And it says the company has agreed to try to return at least 80 percent of striking workers back to where they were before the stoppage. Sarah Hundley, president of Kentucky Nurses Association/UAN Local 114 in Harlan, Ky., and state collective bargaining chair, says: