Temple nurses threaten strike
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
By: Susan Phillips
sphillips@whyy.org
Temple University Hospital nurses and technical support workers have threatened to strike, saying say the hospital is not bargaining in good faith. Several hundred hospital workers held a noontime rally outside the hospital yesterday in north Philadelphia.
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The hospital workers marched up Broad Street to deliver petitions to Temple Health CEO Edmond Notebaert.
"hey Temple you can't hide we can see your greedy side….."
The hospital workers say Temple wants to increase what they pay for health care, while ending a program that helps fund their children's college tuition. They say if no agreement is reached they will stage a three day strike starting Friday. Lorenzo Glover is a respiratory therapist.
Glover: It's basically a warning strike, just to let them know hey we're serious about our demands that we have on the table. We feel that they're not outrageous demands, we feed they're equitable demands that we have on the table and they're not willing to budge at all.
In a written statement, Temple University Hospital officials say the health plan they propose is already in place for non-union employees. The tuition benefit, they say, is now too costly.


I am a nurse at Temple and I truly believe this arguement is totally about money. The nurse's are 100% correct. Temple is using the economy to strong arm it's staff. People maybe unemployed, in serious financial straits, but they have not stopped getting sick. What we are asking are simple things that will provide a better quality of care for our patients. So I ask this question how much is your life worth? Nurses are in the business of saving lives in a safe effective manner and now we have to strike to provide that to our patients. This is just wrong. Health care should be about caring not nickles and dimes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1