CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The walkout at Loretto Hospital, located on Chicago’s West Side, stretched into its seventh day on Sunday. On Day Six of the strike, Loretto Hospital staff held a rally.
The workers gathered outside the entrance to the emergency room on Day Six of the walkout. Jaquie Algee is the Vice President of SEIU Healthcare, which represents the workers.
“You have Lollapalooza; One of the things that they are so concerned about is drug overdose,” Algee said. “When they can’t get them to Northwestern, guess where they bring them? Right here to Loretto. But guess what happens — and this happens every year — they’re short staffed, so they don’t have enough people to take care of them.”
Unionized workers — about 200 of them — have said the hospital is paying too little, which has caused a staff shortage and unsafe working conditions.
“That is not exclusive to just [Lollapalooza] weekend,” Algee said. “We have a crisis every single day.”
State Rep. Marcus Evans Jr. attended the first day of the strike. He said administrators of safety net hospitals told him they needed money to pay workers during the legislative session down in Springfield.
“They got a plan. Right, OK, fine … Now, I’m here after the session is over — after they’ve gotten all of the State dollars to cover their salaries — they don’t got enough money for the workers,” Evans said. “That’s crazy.”
In an earlier statement, Loretto officials said it has offered proposals to address wages, recruitment and retention. They called the union’s demands “impractical.”
The hospital is continuing to operate.
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