ST. LOUIS – A group of SLU Hospital nurses went on strike for two days just after Christmas, and the strike ended early Friday morning.

Nurses went back to work at 7 a.m. on Friday. The hospital brought in nurses from other staffing agencies to fill in during the strike or order to avoid setbacks in patient care.

It was the second strike involving SLU hospital nurses in recent months, organized on behald of the National Nurses Organizing Committee. The union is concerned about patient care, staffing and workplace violence.

SLU Hospital nurses have also reportedly been in negotiations for a new contract with SSM since May 2023.

SSM Health released this statement, in part, to FOX 2 as the strike ended Friday:

“The exceptional care and services to SLU-H patients and the community we serve continued without interruption during the two-day NNOC job action.

SLU-H is proud that a majority of scheduled nurses rejected the NNOC’s call for nurses to walk out on patients and their SSM Health SLU-H team, and instead crossed the NNOC picket line to serve their patients. These nurses joined a team of experienced nurse replacements and continued to provide care at the bedside.

As additional evidence of the growing fatigue from the divisive union tactics, the union was unable to staff its picket line during most hours of the strike and closed picket lines much earlier than advertised – even after soliciting aid from other area unions when nurses failed to join NNOC on the picket line.

The fact that nurses widely rejected NNOC’s call for support was not a surprise. Nurses have voted with their feet about their lack of support for union tactics and are speaking loudly against being treated as pawns for a national NNOC agenda. It is unfortunate that our local nurse heroes are being delayed in getting a contract completed while the NNOC uses them for their own political advantages.

With most nurses ignoring the call for a picket line, a handful of union representatives appeared at the homes of some SSM Health leaders and board members. During at least one home visit, union representatives were peering through windows and rifling through personal mail. They even went so far as approaching young children at home to get their message across. The union representatives, instead of focusing their efforts for the NNOC on negotiating in good faith, have turned to personal attacks at people’s homes. We are incredibly disappointed that the NNOC engages in such inappropriate behaviors.”