By suspending their health benefits.
Employees don’t get paid when they go out on strike, and the employer can suspend their benefits, too. But it’s not common practice in the health care industry, and not a good look for a hospital, especially one affiliated with a highly respected medical school.
Plainly put, “stripping nurses of their health care is a ‘bullying’ intimidation tactic,” Mother Jones said in an article here, noting its biggest victims are single moms.
Working single moms, I might add; women who’ve put in long hours, under miserable conditions, and put themselves and their kids at risk, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The employer in this case is Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (profile here). The nurses’ union is threatening to strike over pay and working conditions. To prevent burnout, the nurses say, they need more staffing, mental health resources, and time off. That sounds reasonable. We all know how much stress health care providers have been under during the pandemic.
They also want better pay. That’s reasonable, too. Inflation is destroying their incomes at a rapid clip. Raises that don’t keep up with inflation, or no raises at all, are effectively pay cuts. Ask workers to work harder for less pay? That’s the surest way to get a union, if you don’t have one, and to get a strike if you do.
The nurses point out the Stanford-Packard hospital system is profitable and has “received over $630 million in federal coronavirus funding.” As for the staffing issues, the union says the nurses are “being texted throughout their days off to come in and cover more shifts.” Days off are supposed to be rest days. Nurses aren’t superhuman. They need rest breaks, and want time with their families, too.
You expect labor negotiations to be tough. But further demoralizing an already-demoralized workforce doesn’t seem smart to me. All labor disputes eventually get settled, and the hospital is on a course to create lingering resentments after the nurses return to work. I’ve also seen plenty of stories about a nationwide nurses’ shortage, so they might not want to acquire a reputation as a bad employer to work for.