National Nurses United

MARYLAND R egistered nurses at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Md., held a historic one-day strike on July 24 to protest Ascension management's refusal to address their urgent concerns about patient care, safe staffing, and high staff turnover in contract negotiations. It was the first time hospital nurses in Baltimore had gone on strike. The more than 600 nurses, who are rep- resented by National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU), also made history in November 2023 as the first RNs to unionize a hospital in Baltimore. "We are striking because patients cannot get the best care due to hospital manage- ment's staffing decisions that have led to a staffing crisis," said Melissa LaRue, a regis- tered nurse in the intensive care unit. "We want Ascension to come to the bargaining table so we can reach an agreement that puts patients first." Ascension Saint Agnes nurses have been in negotiations for a first contract since Jan- uary 2024 with little to no movement on key issues. Ascension management has refused to address nurses' concerns about short staffing, unsafe floating assignments, and RN retention. Between April and July of this year, more than 10 percent of Ascension Saint Agnes' nurses left due to these chronic issues. "We are seeing experienced nurses leave our hospital and the nursing profession alto- gether due to the working conditions at Saint Agnes," said Robin Buckner, a regis- tered nurse on the vascular access team. "We need to stop the exodus of nurses by improv- ing nurse staffing. When we have too many patients to care for, patient outcomes suffer. This is why we are fighting for safe nurse-to- patient ratios in our contracts." The RNs urged management to invest in nursing staff and agree to a contract with safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios; floating procedures that prevent nurses from being assigned to units where they have not estab- lished expertise or competency; and no patient assignments for charge nurses so that they can be a resource for other nurses as intended. In September, Saint Agnes nurses also held a rally and press conference to protest the Catholic hospital chain's questionable financial investments. The RNs, joined by community allies, including members of the Baltimore Catholic community, revealed the findings in a new report by NNU, which found that hundreds of mil- lions of dollars of Ascension investment holdings directly contradict the benevolent image Ascension promotes for itself as a Catholic hospital and leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). "We hope this is a wake-up call to the Catholic Church's leadership that Ascension is far from the Catholic values it pretends to practice," said Nicki Horvat, RN in the neonatal intensive care unit. "As union nurses who have lived Ascension's hypocrisy, on our shifts and at the bargaining table, it's still shocking sometimes to see just how far Ascension is from practicing what they preach. We want Ascension to do better: start by disclosing its investment holdings and then divest from these harmful corpora- tions." The report, "Rejecting the Call: How Ascension's Unethical and Socially Irrespon- sible Investments Contravene Catholic Social Teaching," details the Catholic hospi- tal chain's investments in industries producing armaments and addictive sub- stances, and engaging in labor law breaches, human rights violations, and climate destructive practices. These investments appear to violate investment criteria set for- ward by the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. You can find the report on NNU's website: www.nationalnurs- esunited.org/research. — Chuleenan Svetvilas and Michelle Morris Baltimore nurses hold historic strike, rally against Ascension's hypocrisy J U LY | A U G U S T | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 5 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 11

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