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Nurses at St. Francis hospital vote to authorize strike

St. Francis is an Ascension Via Christi hospital in downtown Wichita. More than 600 nurses at the hospital could soon have a union, depending on the results of an upcoming union vote.
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KMUW
St. Francis is an Ascension Via Christi hospital in downtown Wichita. Nurses at the hospital voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike on Wednesday.

Contract negotiations began in February, and some nurses in the union say Ascension is not responding to their key bargaining points.

Nurses at Ascension Via Christi – St. Francis voted Wednesday to authorize a strike.

The nurses voted 93% in favor of authorizing a strike, said National Nurses United, the union representing nurses at St. Francis and St. Joseph.

The vote does not mean nurses are immediately going on strike. Instead, the vote serves to put pressure on Ascension at the bargaining table.

Contract negotiations began in February, and some nurses in the union say they feel Ascension is not responding to their key points. They say they want a contract that includes workplace violence prevention, safe staffing, and nursing staff recruitment and retention.

“Nurses are patient advocates at the bedside and, when we need to be, on the strike line,” said Angela Cammarn, a nurse in the cardiac intensive care unit in a statement from the union. “It’s very hard to get nurses to leave their patients, but what Ascension management is doing to our facilities is simply unacceptable.

“We were hopeful that bargaining a strong contract would remedy our concerns, but it’s clear management needs to see how serious we are about improving patient care.”

In the event that the union’s bargaining team does initiate a strike, they say they will provide a notice at least 10 days in advance. National Nurses United says it would be the first registered nurse strike in Kansas history.

St. Francis is the largest hospital in Wichita. Nurses at the hospital voted to unionize in November, making it the first hospital in the city’s private sector with unionized registered nurses. Nurses at St. Joseph followed suit four months later.

Today, National Nurses United represents more than 650 nurses at St. Francis and 300 at St. Joseph.

Ascension Via Christi did not immediately respond to KMUW’s request for comment. Other local media have attributed the following statement to Ascension Via Christi:

“We continue to bargain in good faith with National Nurses United to come to a mutually beneficial agreement on an initial contract that supports all and will further our combined goal of providing safe, compassionate care to those we serve. We respect our associates’ right to organize themselves through union representation and participate in a strike authorization vote.

“This action is disappointing given that our bargaining team and NNU’s continue to work toward an initial collective bargaining agreement and have multiple sessions scheduled through the end of August.

“We have not received a 10-day strike notice from NNU. Should we receive an official strike notification, we have a comprehensive contingency plan in place to ensure our patients experience no disruption in care or service.”

Daniel Caudill reports on Kansas state government for Kansas Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. He was a general assignment reporter for KMUW and a reporter, photographer and digital content manager for The Derby Informer and an editor and reporter for The Sunflower. In the spring of 2020, Daniel helped cover the legislative session in Topeka as an intern for the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on Twitter @CaudillKMUW.