CHICAGO, September 13— In preparation for their planned one-day strike today, a multiracial group of nurses at University of Illinois Hospital (UIH)  protested for better wages and safer working conditions. They chanted, “You save money—We save lives!”
But the strike was called off this morning. Why? The union reached a tentative contract agreement, which must still be ratified by the nurses and approved by the University of Illinois’ board of trustees. Details of the contract has yet to be released. Yet, the struggle is far from over.
The nurses were demonstrating in response to their stalled union contract negotiations with the sexist and racist hospital bosses. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades here have been supporting the UIH nurses in their struggles against the bosses. PLP aims to win workers away from the reform struggle treadmill and towards the politics of revolutionary communism.
‘Women’s Work’ of Nursing Devalued
Nursing is a majority-women profession and the ruling class always pays less for “women’s work.” The work itself is discounted and devalued simply by being done mostly by women. Sexism is why the hospital bosses think that any nurse can work any unit—the bosses think the work can’t be that hard since women do it, therefore they should be able to do it wherever and under any conditions. This is sexist garbage. Nurses are crucial to patient care, and deserve a stable working environment. Without nurses, no hospital would cease to function.
The rampant sexism also explains why the hospital bosses think they can get away with terrible the nurses’ working conditions. Their assumption is that women workers won’t stand up and fight against their attacks. They are dead wrong!
From Pakistan to Haiti, from Poland to Chicago, women workers are leading the struggle to bury capitalism and replace it with an egalitarian communist world, one where all labor is valued.
Unsafe Working Conditions = Poor Patient Care
The UIH is a state hospital where the majority of its patients are Black and Latin workers, many of which are rely on federal and state aid. The hospital is a wreck: hazardous staffing ratios force nurses to accept direct patient care on top of managing the unit, and more. The UIH bosses are using racism to attack both healthcare workers and patients alike. The unsafe conditions lead to more stress and burnout for healthcare workers, which in turn leads to poor care outcomes for those same Black and Latin patients.
While racism and sexism are two potent weapons in the capitalist bosses’ arsenal, they also expose two of the bosses’ biggest weaknesses. Historically, the most significant worker movements have occurred struggles where the workers reject the bosses’ divisions and unify across gender, race, nationality, and job titles to demand an increased living standard for all workers. It remains the task of the international working class led by the communist PLP to overcome the bosses’ destructive divisions and organize for workers’ power worldwide.
Bosses’ Hack Union Will Only Sell Nurses Out
The 1,200 nurses represented by the Illinois nurses Association (INA) are demanding a mere an annual 3 percent cost-of-living increase. The Hospital proposing paying nurses a $500 cash bonus the first year of the contract with one percent increases in each of the next two years (Chicago Tribune, 9/5). Throughout the contract negotiations with the UIH bosses, the union misleadership has only proposed the usual plea for crumbs from management, including a paltry wage increase and permission for nurses to speak with union hacks during their shifts.
It’s important for nurses to strike for better working and living conditions. The INA union misleaders only used the threat of a strike but called it off at the eleventh hour. They are not a legitimate fighting force representing the interests of the workers. If the INA actually cared about the success of a strike or the interests of the nurses instead of just collecting membership dues, they would be coordinating with other unions across a wide range of other professions to build the struggle into something much bigger. They would connect the sexist and racist attacks on nurses to the crises of capitalism and its drive towards imperialist war.
However, to do so means bringing attention to the union’s own limits. Given their reformist nature, these collaborating unions will only take the struggle against their capitalist masters so far, before it’s back to business as usual.
In It to Win It with Workers
Instead of winning workers to accept some crumbs, comrades in PLP are fighting to win workers to the idea that they deserve the entire cake. Whether it’s nurses, mechanics, sanitation workers, or teachers, it’s the international working class that truly makes the world go round. Armed with a Party organized for communist revolution, the world is ours to win. Supporting the brave UIH nurses is another step in that long struggle!