As Strike Enters 6th Day, RWJ Nurses, Hospital Admin Sit With Mediator

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — The nurses' strike at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital is poised to enter its sixth day on Wednesday.

However also on Wednesday, both sides — hospital administration and nurses' union leaders — will sit down with a federal mediator to try and work out a compromise. The nurses are asking for pay raises and health insurance caps, among other demands.

Wednesday's face-to-face meeting will be the first sit-down with both sides since the strike began at 7 a.m. last Friday, Aug. 4. Unlike with the Rutgers professors' strike in April, Gov. Phil Murphy has not yet gotten involved in the nurses' strike, a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.

The mediator has not been named, but "a federal mediator has been involved for some time now," he said.

“RWJUH has consistently expressed its willingness to return to the table and welcomes the invitation from the mediator to meet on Wednesday," said Robert Wood Johnson spokeswoman Wendy Gottsegen.

Since Friday, more than 1,700 nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital walked off the job. Nurses walk the picket line daily at Little Albany and Somerset streets in New Brunswick. The nurses are part of United Steel Workers 4-200 and represented by union president Judy Danella.

At 8 p.m. Tuesday, the nurses plan to hold a candlelit vigil outside the hospital.

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital — consistently ranked as one of New Jersey's best hospitals — remains open and completely staffed during the strike. No hospital services, surgeries or patient care have been affected by the nurses on strike, said the hospital.

RWJUH already said they had to contract with a staffing agency to hire "replacement nurses," which the hospital warned "comes at a great cost."

So far, the strike has not reached RWJ's Somerset and Rahway campuses.

As Patch reported last week, the Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School also asked med students to volunteer, unpaid, in the hospital during the strike.

Nurses at RWJUH main campus in New Brunswick last went on strike in 2006.

NJ Transit engineers may also go strike

New Jersey is witnessing a growing tide of labor strikes: Rutgers professors went on strike this spring, for the first time in the state university's 253-year history.

And unionized locomotive engineers at NJ Transit are voting this month to determine whether they will go on strike, if an agreement on a contract cannot be reached. NJ Transit is currently in mediation with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the engineers' union. However, before any possible strike could occur there is a 270-day legal waiting period that must pass after both parties are released from mediation.

“We have made a fair and pattern-based contract offer that has been accepted and ratified by 14 of our 15 rail unions covering 91% of our rail union employees,” said Kyalo Mulumba, an NJ Transit spokesperson. “The BLET is the only union to not accept these terms.”

What the RWJ nurses are seeking are salary increases, a cap on health insurance costs and for the hospital to hire more nurses, especially for "complex" patients. Nurses say they have been short-staffed since the pandemic.

"We need enough nurses on each shift, on each floor, so we can devote more time to each patient and keep ourselves safe on the job," said Danella.

But hospital spokeswoman Gottsegen countered that as recently as last Wednesday — two days before the strike began — "We extended a new offer that would have further addressed their staffing concerns. It was met with silence."

"This (strike) could have been avoided had the union not been so intent on this outcome," she continued. "We are deeply disappointed that United Steel Workers 4-200 decided to take this extreme action. RWJUH has twice accepted the union’s demands. We offered to go to arbitration or submit to a board of inquiry, and the union rejected both ... It did not and should not have come to this."

The nurses' contract expired on July 21.

Nurses Begin Strike At Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (Aug. 4)

Rutgers RWJ Med School Asks Students To Volunteer In Nursing Strike (July 28)

Robert Wood Johnson Nurses Plan To Go On Strike Aug. 4 (July 25)