UNAP Votes to Authorize Strike Notice at Fatima Hospital — Will Picket Hospital on Wednesday
Wednesday, March 06, 2019
Members of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) Local 5110 at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to authorize its' bargaining team to issue a 10-day strike notice.
The union will conduct an informational picket on Wednesday from 2-5 pm on High Service Avenue to draw further attention to Prospect CharterCARE's failed commitments on patient and worker safety.
"We don't take this step lightly and we realize what's at stake for each other, our patients and the community we are proudly a part of," said Cindy Fenchel, president of UNAP Local 5100.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST"It's time for Prospect CharterCARE to come to the table and make substantive commitments on improving patient care and strengthening worker safety. If those commitments are not forthcoming, we will issue the strike notice and do whatever is necessary to improve the failing conditions inside Fatima Hospital," Fenchel added.
UNAP Local 5100 represents more than 400 certified nursing assistants, secretaries, phlebotomists, environmental workers, kitchen workers, laundry workers and other support staff at Fatima Hospital. The bargaining unit is working under a two-year contract that expired January 31, 2019.
According to the union since 2016, UNAP members have filed 150 incident reports with the hospital -- 50 of which had to do with physical assault of employees. The union asked Prospect CharterCARE for copies of the reports, but they refused to release them, forcing the union to file a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). That charge is currently under investigation by the NLRB, and a decision is forthcoming.
