Here & Now

Colin Gillis on UW Health nurses issuing a Strike Notice

Frederica Freyberg:

On the health care front, nurses at UW Health in Madison today delivered their official ten-day notice of intent to strike. The notice comes in response to the hospital’s refusal to recognize the nurses’ union. Hundreds of nurses voted in favor of a three-day walk out starting September 13. IN a statement, UW Health said, “The decision by Service Employees International Union to conduct a strike is disappointing. They will harm patients knowing that their actions will not gain them an answer to these legal questions.” We go now to one of the leaders in the effort to unionize, UW Health nurse Colin Gillis. Thank you for being here.

Colin Gillis:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

The strike would be staged to get the hospital to recognize this union. Why do nurses want the union?

Colin Gillis:

We have been facing cuts that have reduced our ability to take care of patients for almost three years since we lost our union four years ago. So we’re really — we’re demanding this union because we need a real voice at the table where the decisions about staffing and policy get made.

Frederica Freyberg:

Describe your working conditions that led to this decision for nurses.

Colin Gillis:

I work on an in-patient unit where we take care of COVID patients, among others. And we’re constantly working short staffed. And working short staffed as a nurse means you are just making an endless series of impossible decisions. Do I give this patient pain medications or do I stay at the bedside and monitor this patient who may be decompensating and in danger of getting even sicker than they already are? And it’s that kind of experience that causes burnout and exhaustion and moral injury that is causing nurses to leave not just bedside nursing, in-patient nursing, but to leave the profession.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you described a series of cuts over the years. Are these, kind of, deliberate cuts or does it have to do with the shortage of nurses overall?

Colin Gillis:

So we’ve been facing a chronic staffing crisis since the hospital implemented a system known as lean staffing back in 2018. So there is a national staffing shortage but the staffing crisis that we’re experiencing at UW is, in part, a known goal. It’s self-inflicted.

Frederica Freyberg:

Your fellow nurses have said having a union would help patient care. How specifically?

Colin Gillis:

Nurses are on the frontline, the very frontline of health care. So we see what’s happening to our patients as it’s happening. And we’re also, because we’re at the frontline and we’re at the bedside, we’re the experts. We really know what’s going on when we’re facing a pandemic or when we are facing increasing level of patients in need of health care in the county. And it’s us who are most qualified to make decisions about what policies will really work and protect patients. And we also know that we are operating in a crisis situation right now. Where we’re just so understaffed, we can’t take care of our patients the way we need to. And we know that the hospital may be able to hire new nurses all the time, but we can’t do our jobs if our hospital is a revolving door where patients — where nurses get hired and then they leave a year or two later. Go ahead.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m just wondering on the flip side if walking off the job for three days will hurt patient care?

Colin Gillis:

We’re going on strike to protect our patients. And we’re giving our — we already gave the hospital — we are giving them a ten-day notice so they can do what they need in order to keep patients safe during a work stoppage. But the responsibility for the strike is on the hospital. They can legally recognize our union and they refuse to do so.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you feel like you have new leverage now with this nurse shortage and how you were proclaimed health care heroes through the pandemic?

Colin Gillis:

Nurses are — we like to say in nursing that we are the most trusted profession and Gallop has been doing a poll that shows that for a very long time. I think, maybe, yes, we are even more trusted as a result of the pandemic. Because we were there when our country needed us. And by the way, the pandemic is not over. We do think that we are as popular as ever. And also, with the national census, it does make it — it does mean that it’s on the hospital to pay even more attention to us right now.

Frederica Freyberg:

Colin Gillis, thank you for joining us and thanks for your work.

Colin Gillis:

Thank you.