Never Giving Up
Cook County nurses fight to win back pay and bonuses
By Chuleenan Svetvilas
National Nurse magazine - Oct | Nov | Dec 2024 Issue
On a cold, overcast Chicago day in March 2024, with snow still on the ground, a group of nurses wearing red masks marched to the Cook County Health (CCH) Board of Directors meeting, chanting, “What do we want? Retro pay! When do we want it? Now!” The nurses, members of National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU), were in the midst of a months-long battle to get the retention retroactive pay they won in a contract extension last fall.
NNOC President Michelle Gutierrez Vo, RN, marched with the nurses and spoke at the board meeting in solidarity. “It's starting to look like wage theft and union busting,” said Gutierrez Vo. “We demand accountability, we demand reform, and yes, payroll needs to cut the checks for the 1,200 nurses who are owed years of retroactive wages. It is not acceptable that nurses have been waiting for six months for back wages.”
In October 2023, the union nurses had been excited to ratify a one-year contract extension, which included a 3.5 percent raise effective immediately plus a retention retroactive pay increase of 3.5 percent. The extension and pay increases were proposed by the county — no extensive negotiations necessary. But five months later, more than 1,200 CCH nurses still had not received their retention pay: roughly $3,000 to $6,000 per nurse, depending on their length of employment. Collectively, CCH nurses were owed millions. They included nurses who worked for John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital, Provident Hospital, clinics, and Cermak Health Services, which provides health care to detainees at the Cook County Department of Corrections.
As the delays dragged on into 2024, nurses were increasingly fed up and fired up but they were not silent. At every monthly four-hour meeting of the Professional Practice Committee (PPC) at Stroger Hospital, the nurses put the retention retroactive pay on the agenda, noted Brenda Langford, an RN, PPC member, chief nurse representative at Stroger Hospital, and an NNOC board member. One hour of each PPC meeting is set aside to meet with nursing management. During that time, nurses raise issues affecting nursing practice and patient care and also submit written recommendations to management about their concerns.
The PPC had also been fighting for over a year to get CCH to implement an extra-shift bonus program to give nurses a financial incentive, in addition to overtime, to sign up for additional shifts in critically understaffed areas. “During the holidays last year, one med-surg unit had only two nurses for 24 patients,” recalled Langford. “If CCH had offered extra shift bonuses, we could have gotten staff nurses to come in.”
As public-sector nurses, they had additional ways of getting their voices heard. PPC members and other CCH nurses spoke out about the retention pay delay and extra-shift bonuses at numerous Cook County Board of Commissioners and CCH Board of Directors meetings as well as the CCH board’s finance and human resources subcommittee meetings. In February, the PPC began a petition about the backpay delay, collecting 700 petition signatures in two weeks and delivering the document to the Feb. 15 CCH human resources subcommittee meeting.
Tina Montanez, an RN at Stroger Hospital and PPC member, spoke out at various CCH director and subcommittee meetings, including the one in February. “We are urging this committee to listen to us,” said Montanez. “We know our worth. We matter. And we deserve dignity and respect and to be compensated fairly and in a timely manner for the demanding work we provide every day.
“We request you use your authority and demand Cook County pay us nurses the retroactive pay we deserve and have been waiting for since October 2023. We present to you today 700 signatures from nurses throughout the Cook County system demanding our back pay now.”
Langford submitted written testimony for the February CCH meeting, writing about the delays in retroactive pay and advocating for extra shift bonuses to help mitigate the ongoing staffing crisis. “We are asking for safe, scheduled staffing and for CCH to stop delaying negotiated pay for our nurses,” stated Langford. “Withholding negotiated increases can be perceived as a method to further the staffing crisis at CCH...We believe if we can get these pay issues resolved and negotiate extra shift bonuses, it would offer some relief and flexibility in the staffing crisis at CCH.”
Due to the relentless pressure from nurses, CCH human resources finally admitted that they did not have enough people in the finance department to calculate pay scales and differentials to process the checks. HR asked nurses to wait until the fall because the department was short-staffed. That was unacceptable to the nurses.
“We continued to bring it up at board meetings, committee meetings, and PPC meetings,” said Langford, who has worked for Cook County for 26 years. “Finally, HR hired more people and we started getting the money in phases in April.”
By June, all nurses had received their retention pay. Five months later, they were victorious in winning extra-shift bonuses. The agreement on the bonuses was in the process of being executed and rolled out in November, just in time for the holidays.
Tips for winning a campaign
“Don’t give up,” said Brenda Langford, RN, PPC member, chief nurse representative at Chicago’s Stroger Hospital, and an NNOC board member. “It does take time to win a campaign, and it can take multiple campaigns to hold management accountable.
You have to try different ways to accomplish a goal. Share ideas and techniques so everyone can be engaged.”
Nurses need to be proactive to make management do what they are supposed to do, notes Langford. Utilize every resource you have in your arsenal of tools to keep multiple units engaged and take the fight in multiple directions:
- filling out assignment despite objection forms
- raising issues at PPC meetings
- handing out flyers
- wearing statement stickers
- marching on the boss
- gathering signatures for petitions
- holding internal actions
- protesting outside the hospital, and more.
“Solidarity works,” said Langford. “We’re stronger together.”
Chuleenan Svetvilas is a communications specialist at National Nurses United.