By Robert Wright
Ascension Seton Nurses in Texas have ratified a 3-year contract after nearly 2 years of unionizing and struggling for their rights against the hospital system. This marks both the first union contract and 3-year contract won by Ascension Seton Nurses. The labor struggle for nurses in Austin Tx, has seen multiple firsts in recent years. Since nurses began to unionize in September 2022, becoming one of the largest private sector nurses’ union in Texas, the union local has amassed a membership of over 1,500.
Seton nurses conducted two strikes in Wichita and Austin last year, the latter being some of the first nurses’ strikes in Texas history, to pressure the non-profit Ascension Seton hospital system into meeting the demands of the nurses. Nurses voiced the calls of “Patients over Profits”, “Safe Staffing Saves Lives”, and pointing out the enormous $60 million compensation to the CEO over a 4-year period. Nurses have been fighting against the unsafe nurse-to-patient ratio, the grueling workload, poor working conditions and broken equipment.
Highlights of the ratified contract include:
- Significant Improvement to the Nurse-to-Patient ratio: The contract has laid out a minimum staffing ratio of one RN for every two patients in the ICU, NICU, and Labor and Delivery ward. One RN for every four patients in the emergency room and a process for settling staffing disputes.
- Professional Practice Committee: This outlines monthly meetings between ten RNs and management to address solutions for ongoing patient care concerns.
- Patient and RN protections: Setting a standard on health, safety, infectious disease prevention and workplace violence prevention for both nurses and patients.
- Fair and Transparent Wage Scale This includes an average compensation increase of over 11% that is based on a RNs years of experience.
The contract covers over 1,100 RNs, including nursing residents and fellows, which Ascension had initially refused to include in the contract.
Nurses across the Ascension network in Kansas and Maryland are still in negotiations for their first union contracts on the heels of the Austin ratification and a ratified contract for nurses in the Kaiser Permenente Hospital System after strikes in October 2023.
The Ascension Seton Nurses struggle comes in a wave of union activity that has swept across the country. According to a survey published by the American Nurses Foundation in 2022, they found that 75% of acute care nurses report feeling stressed, frustrated, and exhausted. That inability to deliver quality care consistently is now a top reason for nurses’ intent to leave and 89% of nurses surveyed say their organization is currently experiencing a staffing shortage. All of these statistics echo the calls the Seton nurses have raised in their fight for a contract. Nurses across the board report that the conditions in the hospital worsened post-pandemic but were not solely caused by the pandemic. About 17% of nurses in the U.S. are unionized with only 2% in Texas.
Photo: Ascension Seton nurses, National Nurses Union press release
