Striking Nurses ‘Risking Our Lives to Speak Out for Our Patients’

Striking Nurses ‘Risking Our Lives to Speak Out for Our Patients’

by James Parks, Nov 13, 2007

It sounds like a scene from a gangster movie, but the reality is that nurses fighting for a fair contract at Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) face the prospect of violence simply for speaking out for a fair deal and a chance to give better care to their patients.

Nearly 700 nurses, members of the United American Nurses (UAN), have been on strike since Oct. 1 at nine ARH hospitals facilities in Kentucky and West Virginia. ARH hired replacement nurses and is housing them in vacant wings of the hospitals. Now the striking nurses say the company has stepped up its efforts to intimidate them by hiring security guards who routinely harass them and use video cameras to spy on them. And more: Over the weekend, a union representative’s car was burned just minutes after he got off the picket line in Beckley, W. Va.

Here’s what happened, according to the UAN: After he left the picket line, the representative drove a short distance when he realized he had a flat tire. He returned to the picket line for assistance, and when he and others returned to his car, they found it ablaze with brush that had been doused in flammable liquid. When he attempted to report the incident to police, he was told the department was closed for the Veterans Day holiday and that a detective was not available.