FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2025
CONTACT: Megan Othersen Gorman / [email protected] / (215) 817-5781
POTTSTOWN HOSPITAL NURSES SOUND THE ALARM, CALLING OUT OWNER TOWER HEALTH FOR A DEPLORABLE LACK OF COMMITMENT TO SAFE STAFFING AND RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF NURSES
Better Nurse Staffing Leads to Better Outcomes – Decades of Research Prove It. But Tower Health Has Eliminated Critical Support Positions and Refuses to Commit to the Most Basic Staffing Protections, Even as They Insist Pottstown Hospital RNs Accept Wages That Will Only Dampen Recruitment and Retention
“Our Patients Are Our Priority. What’s Tower’s?”
POTTSTOWN, PA – The nearly 300 frontline nurses at Pottstown Hospital and owner Tower Health’s mutual goal of providing exceptional patient care for the Pottstown community should make them partners. But while Pottstown Hospital nurses have been fighting for their patients, Tower Health has been busy fighting its RNs, who have been bargaining for a new contract since November.
Today, at an informational picket outside Pottstown Hospital – what Fox29 news deemed a “strike watch-ish” situation – the nurses fought back.
“We’ve been negotiating for over 8 months,” said Crystal Somerset-Bruce, RN, ICU Nurse and Vice-President, Pottstown Nurses United. “On behalf of our patients, we want Tower to work with us, not against us.”
Tower has eliminated critical support positions, has refused to commit to even the most basic staffing protections, has made it near to impossible to recruit and retain RNs by offering the Pottstown RNs wage increases substantially lower thanwhat they have offered everyone else in the Tower system, all the while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying – in vain – to bust the nurses’ Union.
“Tower Health bought us in 2017, knowing full well that we have a Union, and in the eight years since, they have spent untold amounts of time and thousands and thousands of dollars trying to bust our Union – effort and money that could have been spent on recruiting and retaining staff and for safe patient care,” says Lori Domin, RN, 5th Floor Nurse and President of Pottstown Nurses United. “Our patients are our priority. What’s Tower’s?”
The nurses deserve better – their patients deserve better.
But Tower Health, which has successfully challenged what the PA Attorney General deemed to be potential violations in their nonprofit status and is still not paying their fair share of Pottstown taxes, appears more committed to corporate profits than to its patients, the community, or its employees.
- They have spent AT LEAST $400,000 on Union busting consultants over four months in 2023/2024 to destroy the service workers’ Union at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children (according to their LM10s) and, following that, at Pottstown Hospital, where Tower brought in an estimated 5 to 6 union busters, and paid them somewhere between $2,500 – $3,500 PER DAY PER PERSON (+expenses).
- Per their 2023 990, they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to former C-suite executives: former President Clint Matthews got paid $1.4 million, former EVP Therese Sucher got paid $1.8 million; former CEOs John Cacciamani and Stephen Tullman got paid ~$500,000; former Treasurer Sean O’Connell got paid ~$100,000, and former EVP Gary Conner got paid ~$100,000.
- Yet Pottstown nurses have not had a wage increase since 2023, dampening retention, making it harder to recruit nurses, and ultimately affecting quality of patient care. In 2024, Tower Health negotiated contracts for the RNs at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and the service workers at Pottstown Hospital. Both agreed to wage increases over the life of the contracts of 3% in year 1, 3.25% in year 2, and 3.5% in year 3. Tower gave everyone else in the system an average increase of 3.25% in May of this year. Yet even after three days of marathon bargaining last week, Tower is still offering the nurses at Pottstown less – and insisting on higher healthcare costs.
“Nurses take an oath to do no harm,” said PASNAP President Maureen May at the noontime rally during the picket. “How about we ask administrators to do the same??”
“The strength of our healthcare system relies on the hardworking professionals who keep our hospitals staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” says Pennsylvania state Senator Judy Schwank, in a statement of support she provided to the Pottstown Hospital nurses. “None are more essential than the dedicated registered nurses, like the members of Pottstown Nurses United, who are fighting for a living wage, better working conditions, and safe staffing ratios. These nurses serve their community every day by providing the care people desperately need. It’s time to honor their commitment to others with a contract that fairly recognizes their contributions to the Greater Pottstown area.”
Pottstown Nurses United is an affiliate of PASNAP, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, which represents more than 11,000 frontline healthcare workers across the commonwealth. PASNAP was founded 25 years ago on the belief that patients do better when frontline caregivers have a voice to advocate for their patients and themselves.
