A member of Health Professionals and Allied Employees protests outside University Hospital in Newark on Sept. 18, 2024. (Mark J. Bonamo for New Jersey Monitor)
Nurses at University Hospital in Newark voted overwhelmingly Friday to ratify a new three-year contract, averting a strike that threatened to cripple care at New Jersey’s only public hospital.
The primary sticking point had been the union’s demand for 5:1 patient-to-worker ratios. Burned-out nurses said they had too many patients to safely handle, while university officials insisted their staffing complied with state regulations and they’d hired more than 170 nurses in the past year to reduce vacancies.
The new contract includes 6:1 patient-to-nurse ratios for medical and surgical units, with a commitment to 5:1 by July 2026, according to the union. There will be a 5:1 ratio in pediatrics and 2:1 in intensive care units, the union says. There will also be a staffing committee with registered nurses and management to review compliance and a new wage scale individualized for each job title in a unit, “emphasizing the importance of the work the nurses do,” the union says.
Similar demands for “safe staffing” and higher wages prompted 1,700 nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick to walk off the job last year for four months.
Debbie White, president of Health Professionals and Allied Employees, which represents the Newark nurses, urged state lawmakers to pass a bill that would mandate certain patient-to-staff ratios in New Jersey hospitals.
“Our safe staffing wins benefit patients because we know that limiting the number of patients a nurse can care for at any given time increases the quality of care. Every patient deserves a nurse at the bedside who is not overwhelmed, distracted and stressed,” White said in a statement. “And our fight goes beyond the bargaining table and into the Trenton State House, to urge NJ policymakers to pass these same standards into law.”
In Newark, Friday’s ratification vote by members of Health Professionals and Allied Employees Local 5089 came 11 days after the nurses’ contract expired. University and union officials had met about a dozen times since July to resolve their differences.
The union also negotiated staffing ratios in three other contracts this year with Palisades Medical Center, Englewood Health, and Cooper University Medical.
Nurses say reducing the number of patients assigned to them ensures better patient outcomes and fewer workplace injuries.
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