New Jersey Healthcare Workers Sound the Alarm on the Need for Safe Staffing

Every single worker deserves to feel safe at their workplace and be able to provide the best possible care to their patients. Unfortunately, too many healthcare workers are suffering from understaffing—damaging patient care and leading to poor working conditions. CWA members in New Jersey are stepping up to fight for legislation that will require safe staffing levels so that workers can provide the best possible care for their patients.

When healthcare facilities fail to adequately staff up, it jeopardizes patient outcomes and leads to significant rates of burnout and stress, and even more workers leaving the profession—A 2022 national study found that 51% of surveyed nurses considered leaving the profession within the next year, citing short staffing and moral distress as the driving factors. The odds of patient death increase by 7% for each additional patient a nurse must take on at one time. New Jersey’s current healthcare staffing regulations, which have not been updated since 1987, fail to protect workers and patients.

CWA Local 1091 President Shannon Gomes was interviewed this week for a piece in NJ Spotlight News on the campaign to win safe staffing in New Jersey, saying that despite their best efforts at the bargaining table, contractual measures “have often fallen short of what is needed. While our employers have shown a willingness to collaborate creatively with the union, it is evident that stronger staffing legislation and additional state intervention are imperative to effectively address the nursing shortage in New Jersey.”

You can read the full article here.