Striking nurses to get support boost in fight for new contract

By CNN Newsource

Published October 10, 2022 7:50 am

By Audrey Russo and Jay Kenney

ROCKY HILL, Connecticut (WFSB) — Unionized nurses at Windham Hospital will get a major boost in their ongoing fight to secure a new contract.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal will speak out and support the nurses on Monday afternoon.

Blumenthal is expected to speak at AFT Connecticut in Rocky Hill, where he’ll cite a recent Yale School of Medicine study that documented what he called an alarming over-crowding issue in hospitals nationwide.

The nurses have been demanding better pay and health insurance from the hospital. They also seek an end to Willimantic Hospital’s mandatory overtime policy.

At issue, according to the nurses, has been over-crowding that put patients at risk.

They also claim that Windham Hospital has refused to re-open all of its units or admit patients from other hospitals.

The striking nurses penned a detailed letter to the State Department of Public Health that stated “… nurses at Backus are being forced to work mandatory hours with un-safe staffing ratios as the census surges. This harms nurses and patients alike.”

Windham Hospital’s president has already removed mandatory overtime language from their proposed contract with the Windham nurses.

The hospital claimed its pay for nurses is already 5 percent higher than the average nurses salary.

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