Hundreds of nurses at Austin’s Ascension Seton Medical Center walked out of the hospital Tuesday morning, kicking off the largest nurses strike in Texas history.
The strike began at 6:45 a.m., with nurses marching along West 38th Street in front of the hospital, holding signs with messages like “Safe staffing saves lives!” and “Essential? Yeah right!”
Seventy-two percent of the 900-person nursing staff voted to form a union last fall. National Nurses United began its first contract negotiations with Ascension in November. Now, the union says it has reached an impasse with hospital management over priorities related to hiring and retention.
A top concern for the union is lower guaranteed nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. Nurses at the hospital say they are assigned too many patients at a time, causing nurses to burn out and patients to receive a lower standard of care.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/27/texas-nurses-strike/