YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Members of the Ohio Nurses Association were back on the picket line Wednesday after Northside Hospital implemented what the union is calling a selective lockout.

 

Hospital officials say they do not want to characterize it as a lockout, but say they are communicating with nurses to determine who will stay and who must go home.

Letters have now been given out to individual nurses about their job status: some members, including those who were on the picket lines yesterday, are being told they can come back to work today, others are being given a three day notice, and some letters are being sent out with no return date listed.

Union members are speculating if the letters with unlisted return dates mean that those nurses have been terminated. 

A statement released by ValleyCare said that the hospital contracted temporary replacement nurses to fill positions for a seventy-two hour period. 

The nurses went on a 24 hour strike on Tuesday after unresolved negotiations with management. The nurses had been working without a contract for over 14 months. 

 

In response, hospital management filed two unfair labor practice charges against the union, which represents 485 nurses at the hospital, challenging the validity of the union's strike notice.

The union also filed an unfair labor practice against hospital management, alleging illegal intimidation of nurses.

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