Officials at the Rhode Island Department of Health this past weekend continued to monitor Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital as operations returned back to normal.
Last week, about 2,400 members of the local United Nurses and Allied Professionals union walked out of the hospitals to strike after contract talks with Lifespan, the state’s health system, failed.
Nicole Alexander-Scott, direcotr of the state’s health department, said in an emailed statement Friday officials have been monitoring the transition back from the replacement healthcare workers to the facilities’ regular healthcare workers.
Alexander-Scott said the work stoppage did not result in any major patient care incidents.
Union officials said they will ask members to authorize another 10-day strike notice in case negotiations scheduled for August 8 by a federal mediator break down again.
Unionized Hospital Employees Cross The Picket Line
When union workers go on strike, their co-workers usually walk off the job, too. But more than 2,000 union employees have been crossing the picket line this week during a three-day strike, and now a lockout, at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital.
Since the United Nurses and Allied Professionals union, or UNAP, walked off the job Monday, many of their co-workers honk their horns in support as they pass. They’re union members, too. And they’ve been crossing the picket line all week to go to work.
They’re people like Bethany DaRosa, a medical technician at Rhode Island Hospital. “I purposely take Eddy Street, and open my windows and honk my horn,’’ she said, “and show my support for my nurses that are out there.”
Even though her colleagues are on strike, DaRosa, 29, continues to work in the hospital’s emergency room. She said that’s hard to do.
“You know, working shoulder-to-shoulder with someone, saving someone’s life,’’ she said, “Trust gets built. Respect gets built, and friendships. They become like family members to us.”
More than 2,400 employees at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital are members of Teamsters Local 251. And they’re not on strike. The Teamsters’ contract doesn’t expire until next March. So if they don’t report to work without a good reason — they could lose their jobs. DaRosa said the striking UNAP workers understand that.
“They know we have to come in,’’ she said. “So they were as supportive of us going into the building as we were of them.”
There was a time, 20 to 30 years ago, when union members crossing a picket line would have been almost unheard of. Richard McIntyre, chairman of the economics department at the University of Rhode Island, said in those days, if one union crossed another union’s picket line “you would have seen some fights.”
McIntyre said he can’t recall any other example in Rhode Island’s history when there were two unions under one employer, with one union striking and the other working. “It is kind of odd, and usually it’s not what you see,’’ he said. “Honoring the picket line is maybe not what it once was.”
DaRosa, the emergency room technician, said she and the other Teamsters’ union members are honoring the picket line the only way they can.
“Do we want to be out there with them? Absolutely,’’ she said. “But we want to be inside, too, taking care of our patients. We’re holding down the fort.”
She said a few of the ER techs spent their off-hours walking the picket line with the UNAP members. “Some of them dropped off cases of water and snacks.”
And on Friday, her day off, DeRosa said, she plans to take her 22-month-old daughter with her to join the picket line.
