Nurses at Las Vegas’ MountainView Hospital are demanding management hire and retain more nurses and guarantee staff work and meal breaks.
The nursing staff made the demands after voting to authorize a strike this week.
According to the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United, 98 percent of the nurses at Mountain View Hospital voted in favor of the strike.
The union says negotiations stalled shortly after they began in April.
Nicole Taylor is a chief nurse representative for the union and has spent six years as a labor and delivery nurse at MountainView. She said the hospital’s reluctance to hire and retain staff impacts patient care.
“When nurses are spread too thin and nurses have too many patients and too many tasks to complete, things could get missed. And those are the types of things that can be detrimental to someone’s overall long term health.”
A spokesperson from MountainView Hospital commented, "Activities such as this picket are typical and expected from the union during contract negotiations, which happen every three years at MountainView. During these negotiations, which began in mid-April, our goal is the same: to secure a fair agreement that continues to support a culture of colleague safety, care excellence and compassion. During any planned activity like this, our doors will remain open and our commitment to delivering top-notch care to our patients remains our priority.
MountainView Hospital is bargaining in good faith. The hospital has made significant proposals regarding compensation, health and safety and staffing, and the parties have actually reached tentative agreements on a number of issues, contrary to the union's assertions of stagnation.
The hospital has, in good faith, continued to bargain for fair wages for our nurses. We recognize pay rates are an important part of these negotiations. The union continues to demand wage increases of up to 33 percent over three years. That is unreasonable and unsustainable. At the end of three years, our current wage proposal would raise wages up to 17%, when including step increases.
Despite the national nurse shortage, we continue to aggressively recruit more registered nurses. Since the beginning of 2023, we have hired 293 new RNs and our turnover rate is at a 5-year low. We have 168 patient care technicians and are continuing to hire more to help our nurses and staff.
We continue to be hopeful that the union will realize that our nurses’ voices have been heard by MountainView Hospital and begin to bring these negotiations to a positive conclusion."
Despite the vote, union officials say that a strike is NOT currently scheduled. If one is called, the union says it will provide hospital management ten days’ notice to allow time to plan for patient care.
