Members of the nurses union at University Medical Center announced on Thursday (Jan. 16) that they will hold a vote on whether to strike for the second time in four months, saying hospital management has continued to drag its feet on negotiations toward a collective bargaining agreement.
Nurses at the hospital held a one-day strike last October during a busy tourism weekend due to a series of Taylor Swift concerts. In a speech on Thursday, union members said they are considering a two-day strike to put more pressure on LCMC Health, the private company that runs the publicly owned hospital for the state, to reach an agreement.
The announcement came during a Thursday evening vigil the union organized to honor victims of the New Year’s Day attack on Bourbon Street. Around 30 nurses held electric candles and bowed their heads during a moment of silence. As the city’s only Level 1 trauma center and the hospital closest to the attack, UMC nurses were in charge of caring for most of the injured victims.
Nurses will hold the strike vote on Jan. 22. They have yet to vote on when to hold the strike and for how long.
Night shift nurse Julien Farges was on the emergency room floor when the hospital started to fill with victims of the attack. New Year’s Eve is always a busy night for the hospital, he said, but the attack made working in the ER overwhelming. Farges said he had to care for eight patients that night — twice his normal load.
“I knew that things were bad when I saw my charge nurses, who have been nurses for 15 years, sprinting towards the trauma case,” Farges said. “That day still weighs pretty heavily on me, on all of us.”
Since they voted to unionize in December 2023, the nurses at UMC have asked management for increased recruitment, higher wages and comprehensive workplace violence prevention measures. Since then, union members said they’ve met with management 20 times but have not finalized a contract, according to the bargaining team members.
Dana Judkins, a registered nurse in the trauma intensive care unit said she came into work at 7 a.m. on New Year’s Day, completely unaware of what awaited her in the ICU. She said the attack was the worst mass casualty she has seen as a nurse.
“It wasn’t necessarily the patients’ injuries and all of that that was making it stressful,” Judkins said. “We’re used to dealing with stressful situations. It was just the magnitude of the grief and the loss.”
Both Judkins and Farges said support from management was lacking both during and after the attack.
“That day in the trauma ICU was the most difficult, emotional and grief-filled day,” Judkins said in a speech at the vigil. “As a nurse, I didn’t get an opportunity to take a break, drink water or just think about what just happened. That day, as well as the following days, I never saw anyone from administration. No one came to check on these patients or their staff. No one offered to help while we were drowning.”
LCMC Health did not respond to questions about the potential strike or the nurses’ claims about working conditions in time for publication.