Registered nurses at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Martinsburg, West Virginia. will hold an informational picket on Friday, October 11 to highlight the administration’s refusal to bargain with nurses over flexible scheduling policies that would improve patient care and nurse retention, announced National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU).

“Nurses’ schedules affect the veterans we care for,” said Beverly Simpson, RN in the acute care infection control unit. “Nurses can provide the highest standard of care only when we have time in between our grueling shifts to rest, recover, and take care of our personal matters. With no meaningful engagement with our hospital’s director about improving our schedules or addressing a growing staffing crisis, we are taking our concerns directly to the community.”

The Martinsburg VA’s scheduling practices are driving away nurses who are choosing to work at area hospitals that offer flexible scheduling. The flexible scheduling Martinsburg VA nurses are demanding is not unprecedented — in fact, flexible scheduling is a permitted option in the VA employee handbook. When flexible scheduling was fully implemented in the intensive care unit of the Martinsburg VA hospital, the ICU became fully staffed.

Simpson, RN continued: “Nurses want to stay at the VA and care for our veterans, but we need schedules that work with our lives. We’ve seen very clearly from the example of the ICU that we can keep nurses at the hospital if management were willing to listen to us and our solutions.”

What: Martinsburg VA RNs’ informational picket and rally with representatives from veterans organizations, community allies
When: Friday, October 11, 7:00-8:00 a.m.
Where: 2904 Charles Town Rd., Martinsburg, VA – across from the hospital gates

More than 200 Martinsburg VA nurses have signed a petition demanding schedules that both enhance the VA’s high level of care and nurses’ ability to maintain work-life balance.

NNOC/NNU represents more than 400 registered nurses at the Martinsburg VA hospital. 

National Nurses Organizing Committee is an affiliate of National Nurses United, the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with nearly 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates also include California Nurses Association, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.