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By Bob Hennelly

At a press conference this week HPAE, New Jersey’s largest nurses’ union, announced today an overwhelming strike vote approvals at three large New Jersey Hospitals. Contracts expired on Friday at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, Cooper University Health Care, and Hackensack Meridian Health’s Palisades Medical Center. The primary issue for HPAE, as it has been for healthcare unions across the nation, is enforceable staffing levels that protects their patients and ensures the retention of nurses.

Of course, this comes several months after United Steelworkers Nurses Local 4-200 won their six-month-long heroic strike over the same issue. As we have seen in the aftermath of the pandemic that took the lives of over 1.1 million Americans, including at least 3,600 nurses, 800 of whom came from our region, hospitals have made millions for their CEOs but refuse to staff their facilities in a way that puts patients ahead of profits.

Debbie White, RN, the president of HPAE, updates us on the latest in the contract  fight and the campaign to get Trenton to get safe staffing legislation on the books.

On this week’s episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we get an action advisory from Shirley Aldebol, 32 BJ SEIU executive vice president  and director of the union's school division covering 5,000 cleaners and handypeople who keep NYC’s 1,300  public schools running. Their contract with NYC DOE-contracted non-profit New York City School Support Services (NYCSSS) expires June 30.

Workers rallied at City Hall this week for a fair contract that must include their first pension upgrade since 2018, that’s necessary to counter the high cost of living in New York City that threatens to erode their retirement security.

We finish up with a conversation with Emmanuel Morgen, who is working with a growing coalition of environmental and community groups in New Jersey that opposes a very controversial $11 billion expansion of the New Jersey Turnpike in Hudson County.

The Turnpike Trap Coalition and EmpowerNJ say, in light of the worsening climate crisis, this massive amount of money must be spent on stabilizing NJ Transit, which is struggling and looking to working families for a 15 percent fare increase they can’t afford.

And  listener calls.

Listen to the entire show below: