SCRANTON, Pa.—Two local hospitals have locked out nurses for four days after they staged a 24-hour
strike Apr. 25. When registered nurses at Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton showed up for work the next morning, a security guard told them, “you can continue your strike, or you get sent home… You’re not permitted in the building,” while at First Hospital in Kingston, a personnel officer handed them letters telling them not to come in until Monday, Apr. 30. Hospital officials told the Scranton Times-Tribune that the temporary nurses hired as strikebreakers had to be guaranteed five days’ work. The strikers, 260 registered nurses at Moses Taylor and about 120 nurses and mental-health workers at First Hospital, have been working under an expired contract since last year. Sue Goryl, a nurse at Moses Taylor for 28 years, told the Times-Tribune that SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania brought in a detailed proposal last November, but “98 percent of it was rejected on the first day.” Nurse Jennifer Kamla said that understaffing was so bad that sometimes patients are brought to the operating room “in their own urine, and what we have to do is clean them before they actually get to surgery.” Read more
