Major Class Action Lawsuits Filed in Four Cities Allege Hospitals Collude
To Ensure Nurses are Valued and Rewarded on the Job, Nurse Alliance of SEIU Helped Expose Pay Issues Leading to Suits
WASHINGTON, DC – Major class action lawsuits were filed today against national hospital corporations in four cities – Chicago, Memphis, San Antonio, and Albany, N.Y. – alleging that they have colluded illegally to hold down nurse wages.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was invited to join with the Washington, D.C. law firmof Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, PLLC in announcing the suits because of the work the Nurse Alliance of SEIU did to help expose the wage issues that led to today's filings.
"Nurses are the central nervous system of health care. We provide the day-to-day care that is so important to helping people get well," said Cathy Singer-Glasson, RN, President of the Nurse Alliance of SEIU. "But I have seen so many nurses leave the profession they love because of working conditions that make it harder to give our patients the care they deserve. Now we find out through these lawsuits that while nurses were fighting for our patients, some hospitals may have been working illegally to hold down our wages."
The Nurse Alliance, which has more than 84,000 nurse members in 23 states, is seeking to work with hospitals to improve inadequate nurse wages and difficult working conditions that have driven RNs from the beside and led to a shortage of nurses who are willing to work in hospitals. In 2004, more than 500,000 nurses chose to work outside of the nursing profession, despite an anticipated need of more than one million nurses by 2014.
"With the health care industry making more than $26 billion in profits in 2004, we can do better," said Andy Stern, SEIU International President. "The people who pay for the illegal practices laid out in these lawsuits are nurses and patients – nurses through short staffing and inadequate wages, and patients through decreased time with RNs and a greater risk of complications."
"If we are going to solve the health care crisis in this country, illegal activity like this has to stop, and all of us have to work together to find solutions," he said.
The Nurse Alliance of SEIU unveiled a new white paper in March, Solving the Nursing Shortage through Higher Wages, from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, citing low pay, short staffing, and mandatory overtime as conditions that have caused nurses to leave the bedside. The report showed how raising nurse salaries will help draw more nurses back to the profession. That research, combined with work that the Nurse Alliance's Value Care, Value Nurses initiative has done to publicize the issue with nurses, helped expose the problems brought to light by the lawsuits. More information, including a copy of the IWPR report, is available online at www.ValueCareValueNurses.org.
With more than 84,000 nurses in 23 states, the Nurse Alliance is one of the largest nursing organizations in the country. Through its Value Care, Value Nurses initiative, nurses are uniting across the country to pursue any and all solutions to bring nurses back to the bedside and raise the standard of care – from enforcement of existing laws, to calling for new legislation protecting nurses and patients, to giving nurses a voice in the delivery of patient care.