The striking nurses from Temple University Hospital have come down to City Council today.
After marching around City Hall, roughly a hundred nurses entered Council chambers and the viewing gallery, bearing signs that read "Temple: Respect Your Professional Nursing Staff" and "Nurses on Strike for Respect."
As our colleague David Gambacorta reported this week, about 1,500 nurses and other medical professionals who are represented by Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals went on strike last Wednesday. The union members' contract expired in September.
Temple has hired more than 800 temporary workers to staff the hospital during the strike.
The sides have vehemently disagreed over pay raises, health-care contributions and a tuition benefit for children of union employees, which Temple wants to end.