“To Keep Not Only Patients but Ourselves Safe, We Have to Unionize”
Nurses at Mission Health hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, are about to vote on a union. We talked to five of them about why they’re organizing, how health care–worker unions can improve patient care and safety, and what a victory would mean for establishing a beachhead for unions in the South.
Sarah Kuhl joins the fight to unionize nurses at Mission hospital in Ashville, North Carolina. (Photo by Christine Rucker)
Right now, nurses in North Carolina are mailing in their ballots in what could be one of the most consequential elections of their lives — and it isn’t the 2020 presidential election. After a five-month delay under the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), more than 1,700 nurses at Mission Health hospital in Asheville will finally decide if they want to form a union with National Nurses United. The election results will be announced by the NLRB on September 16.
HCA Healthcare is one of the wealthiest hospital corporations in the world with 180 hospitals in the United States and the United Kingdom. The for-profit, multinational conglomerate purchased the nonprofit Mission hospital in February 2019. Within months of the sale, nurses and patients in the mountains of Western North Carolina witnessed a sharp decline in their quality of care amidst widespread complaints over staff cuts, long wait times, supply shortages, and burnout.
That was before the coronavirus hit.
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