Mount Sinai Hospital and Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital workers have authorized their union to call a strike after contract negotiations faltered.
The strike vote puts Sinai Health System on notice that more than 400 of its employees, represented by SEIU Healthcare Illinois, will walk off the job if their demands aren’t met. Those participating in the strike would include certified nursing assistants, clerical, service and maintenance workers.
Union President Greg Kelley said an exact date for the strike hasn’t been decided. Bargaining members were back at the negotiation table Wednesday, he said.
“The bargaining has gone very slow and have not met any of our economic demands,” Kelley said. “Our members are paid poverty-level wages, which is either just above minimum wage or at minimum wage.”
“We are demanding they change that.”
Members overwhelmingly voted in favor of striking and are also asking for safer working conditions, adequate staffing levels and improved health insurance, Kelley said. SEIU Healthcare has an ownership stake in Sun-Times Media.
Workers have been working without a contract since the end of June.
Kelley said while the vote doesn’t include register nurses because they aren’t union members they have their support. Some, he said, might even participate in the walkout.
Dan Regan, a spokesman from Mount Sinai, said the hospital received a letter from the union but hasn’t received the federally required 10-day notice of intent to strike.
“Sinai and the union have been in negotiations for approximately four months and have had multiple bargaining sessions, with progression toward signed agreements between the hospitals and the union,” Regan said. “We remain confident we will reach resolution on a final contract in the near future,”
Mount Sinai is one of five Level 1 trauma center that treats patients suffering life-threatening in Chicago. The 288-bed facility has more than 45,000 patients visiting the emergency room every year.
Manny Ramos is a corps member of Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of Chicago’s South Side and West Side.
