Nurses at UnityPoint Meriter Hospital in Madison threaten strike

Almost 1,000 unionized nurses at UnityPoint Health-Meriter Hospital in Madison could go on strike later this month.

The nurses are represented by the Service Employees International Union. They say they’ve been negotiating a new contract with the hospital since January.

The union plans to strike from May 27 until June 1 if the hospital doesn’t meet certain contract demands.

The hospital will have to budge on three things to avert a strike, said Pat Raes, president of SEIU Wisconsin. She said the union is seeking safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, hospital safety measures and higher pay for senior staff, aimed at retention.

Physical safety a concern for nurses, union says

“The nurses are truly concerned about safety,” Raes said.

Along with her role with the union, she said she has worked as a nurse at Meriter for 36 years.

She said management hasn’t done enough to address nurses’ concerns about staffing levels and physical safety at the hospital.

“We’re seeing more and more guns and knives come into the hospital than we’ve ever seen before,” she said. “Ever since we saw COVID happen, people have lost a lot of coping and communication skills.”

She said understaffed overnight shifts and low retention of seasoned nurses are contributing to worsening workplace safety.

“We have senior staff leaving all the time for different jobs,” she said.

She said having experienced staff’s “institutional knowledge and critical thinking, and not all-new nurses on the off-shifts” improves patient safety.

Hospital has offered wage increase over 2 years

Meanwhile, the hospital offered wage increases for 2025 and 2026 in its proposed contract, averaging to 3.68 percent a year.

With those increases, a spokesperson told WPR, the average full-time nurse’s salary would grow from $101,300 to over $108,900.

The hospital is also offering higher pay for night, weekend and on-call shifts, the spokesperson said.

“We are disheartened that the union has chosen to use such a disruptive tactic, as we know that a work stoppage can cause stress on our team members and our community,” said Sherry Casali, UnityPoint’s chief nursing officer for the Madison market.

Contingency plan in place as negotiations continue

Casali said the hospital has a “contingency plan to ensure that normal operations continue” during a strike.

“While we do not believe a strike is in the best interest of our ongoing negotiations with the union, we respect our team members and their rights,” she said.

Raes said the early notification of a possible strike was made to give the hospital time to prepare.

“We very much want to avoid a strike. We are hoping for a deal,” she said, adding that two bargaining days are left before May 27.

Meriter was founded about a century ago, originally as Madison General Hospital. It was acquired by Iowa-based hospital network UnityPoint Health in 2014. In addition to the Madison hospital, UnityPoint owns 14 hospitals in Iowa and two in Illinois.