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Nurses Reject Hospital’s Offer

Governor offers to help bring the Hospital back to the bargaining table

For Immediate Release                                            July 28, 2006

Registered nurses represented by the United Steelworkers (USW) in New Brunswick, N.J. rejected a contract offer from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Thursday, July 27 by a vote of 765 to 165.

Jerry Collins, the president of USW Local 4-200, described the vote this way, “This is the largest turn out of our nurses since we first became organized. Maybe now the hospital will come back to the table and bargain with us”.

USW Local 4-200 represents 1,313 Robert Wood Johnson nurses and has been in contract negotiations with the hospital since April. Although the nurses’ contract expired on June 30, it has been extended twice to accommodate the hospital’s requests to do so.  The hospital presented what it described as its “last and final” offer Monday, July 17, which was rejected through yesterday’s vote.

David J. Socolow, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, contacted the USW at the urging of Governor Jon Corzine and requested that the union not initiate a 10-day strike notice to the hospital until the Governor’s staff has had an opportunity to contact hospital administration to urge them to return to the bargaining table.