ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - In September, nurses at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital went on a 24-hour strike, it's first-ever walk-out.
Over two months later, with no end in site for a deal to be reached by the hospital and it's nurses, a second strike could soon be coming.
Union nurses at the hospital have been working without a contract since mid-June.
On Friday, nurses at the hospital voted by an overwhelming majority to authorize their nurse bargaining team to call a strike, if management fails to resolve key issues the nurses have been raising in contract negotiations, it's union, National Nurses United, announced.
If the nurses call a strike, they will have to provide a 10-day notice to the hospital. The strike would be longer than the 24-hour strike nurses went on back in September.
Among the demands by the nurses include better safety measures for nurses, along with increased staffing of nurses and making sure nurses can have breaks. Kellie Allen, a nurse at the hospital, says that they have made progress on some of those fronts when she appeared on Total Information A.M.
"There has been some progress in certain areas of the contract like our insurance, compensation and workplace violence issues," said Allen. "There has been a grievance on that and there has been movement."
However, the union wants to specifically call attention to the hospital outsourcing of nurse jobs.
According to the union, SSM Health is outsourcing nursing jobs, instead of hiring full-time union staff nurses. The union says having a revolving door of nurses in a hospital – rather than longtime employees who know their workplace well – disrupts the continuity of care that patients need in their medical treatment.
“Outsourcing is not a solution to the staffing crisis,” said Sarah DeWilde, RN in the medical-surgical unit at SLUH. “Temporary, outside agency staff should only be used to fill occasional gaps, not to replace full-time union nurses, who are necessary for continuity of care and mentorship of new staff. Outsourcing will only exacerbate the current staffing crisis and further erode the quality of patient care for years to come.”
Allen said she has seen the "travel nurses" do three shifts in a row, sometimes in three different areas. She says she has had to check multiple times to make sure they are policy compliant.
"They don't know our patients, they don't know policy, they don't know physicians." said Allen. "
DeWilde, who's also a part of the bargaining table, told KMOX previously that she, along with plenty of nurses in the hospital hasn't had a break in years.
"We're tired of being tired," said DeWilde. "We want changes in the hospital and SSM Health knows that we need changes to better our care of patients."
Safety measures for nurses is a serious priority for the union, as hospital violence has started increasing rapidly across the county.
"I don't want to be concerned about having to go seek treatment somewhere because I just got injured at work," said DeWilde.