FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2025
CONTACT: Megan Othersen Gorman / [email protected] / (215) 817-5781
WITH ACUITY AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH AND STAFFING DANGEROUSLY LOW, NURSES, TECHS, AND PROFESSIONALS AT TWO OF TEMPLE HEALTH’S SATELLITE CAMPUSES, SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: AFTER 14 MONTHS OF BARGAINING, THEY, GIVE TEMPLE HEALTH A DEADLINE
NEARLY 100% OF ALL 500-PLUS BARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEES AT CHESTNUT HILL HOSPITAL AND JEANES HOSPITAL VOTE TO AUTHORIZE 5-DAY STRIKES, STARTING JULY 4TH
“Hey, Temple: Can You Hear Us Now?”
Philadelphia, PA – Hundreds of frontline workers at two Temple Health-owned satellite campuses – Chestnut Hill Hospital and Jeanes Hospital – want and deserve fair contracts that respect the services they provide to their hospitals and to the people who rely on their facilities for critical, life-saving care. Yet Temple Health, at separate bargaining tables, has offered them – and by extension, their patient communities – anything but.
This week, the 265 nurses and 77 techs at Chestnut Hill Hospital and 190 techs and professionals at Jeanes Hospital said, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! And they gave Temple Health a deadline.
On Tuesday, 98% of techs and professionals at Jeanes Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia voted to authorize a strike for July 4th, if necessary. A day later, on Wednesday, June 11th, 99% of nurses at Chestnut Hill Hospital and their tech colleagues voted to authorize a strike for July 4th, if necessary.
“I’m extremely ecstatic that we voted by almost 100% to authorize the strike,” says Kadena Smith-Fleming, RN, a member of the Chestnut Hill Hospital technical unit. “This should make it crystal clear to Temple that the nurses and the techs at Chestnut Hill are tired of their games. We want a contract and we want a contract NOW.”
Temple management has slow-walked the bargaining process at every turn for all three Locals. What’s worse, Temple is proposing actual cuts to current levels of compensation for staff at Chestnut Hill despite the fact that retention of experienced caregivers is a serious problem that impacts quality of care at both hospitals. Temple has also refused to make the same commitments that are in place at other Temple campuses to staff the hospital safely.
This is not how Temple Health treats caregivers at its other campuses.
Once deemed heroes, these frontline workers, all vital to the health and well-being of their respective communities, are fed up with the chronic stonewalling, the chronic understaffing, and lack of respect for what they bring to patients in the halls of their hospitals.
“Chestnut Hill Hospital has Temple’s name on the front of the building and in their advertisements, and Chestnut Hill Hospital caregivers and workers provide the same excellent service as our counterparts in other facilities in the system, but Temple doesn’t treat us like the other Temple techs, nurses, and workers – they’re actually refusing to,” says Beth Diehl, a Chestnut Hill Hospital X-ray Technologist. “We are not second-tier employees, and we’re tired of being treated as though we are. We’re tired of losing colleagues to other facilities that respect their workers more. Our patient community here in Chestnut Hill deserves better.”
“We have very reasonable offers on the table that would ensure we keep our highly skilled nurses at Chestnut Hill. That’s what we want. That’s what our patients want. That’s what a hospital that cares about patient outcomes should want,” says Chestnut Hill Hospital ICU nurse Jim Smith, RN. “But management is proposing actual pay cuts. They want us to go backward. But nurses will go sideways – to other healthcare facilities – before we will go backward.”
The laboratory at Jeanes has been a revolving door for years. Low wages and lack of respect have made it impossible to retain qualified laboratory staff to help our hospital give the best possible care to our patients.
“For years, we have been fighting for equity in the cardiac cath lab,” says Monica Naydovich, a Cardiac Cath Tech and four-year veteran of Jeanes Hospital. “We give critical, life-saving care and our patients are sicker than ever. All we want is to be treated equally to our RN colleagues who we work side-by-side with.”
“After years of being underpaid, understaffed, and neglected, we joined PASNAP to have our voices heard,” says Jackie Brettle, an X-Ray Technologist and 24-year veteran of Jeanes Hospital. “Yet Temple continues to come to the bargaining table with deaf ears and refuses to settle a contract that will allow our hospital to keep the dedicated staff our patients rely on.”
A strike authorization vote by the membership authorizes their bargaining committee to submit a 10-day strike notice if the healthcare workers’ issues remain inadequately addressed. No strike notices have been submitted yet, because they need only be submitted 10 days in advance. But the workers at Chestnut Hill and Jeanes hospitals are ready to strike on July 4TH.
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Chestnut Hill Nurses United, Chestnut Hill Techs United, and Jeanes Techs & Pros United are all Locals of PASNAP – the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, which represents more than 11,000 frontline healthcare professionals across the commonwealth and was founded 25 years ago on the belief that patients do better when critical care staff have a strong voice to advocate for their patients and themselves.
