POTENTIAL NURSING STRIKE AT VIRTUA
Negotiations Stalled On Safe Patient to Nurse Ratios
Forty-one-year nursing veteran Sheryl Mount drove her car in motorized picket around Virtua Hospital in Mount Holly on Thursday May 27, 2026 as she explained a negotiation deadlock to The Reporter. “Virtua is greedy”, said Mount. “They cut staffing to a bare minimum”.
Mount continued that in the past “We weren’t allowed to tell patients how many other patients we had, because they [management] didn’t want patients to know. Now nurses have had enough, so they’re speaking out. We want the community to know what is going on inside their hospital.” Mount said nurses have done the “caravan” demonstration before, but “its never been this successful before. People have had enough.”
Currently, nurses are routinely assigned six, seven, or eight patients, which compromises clinical safety and patient care. For safety, nurses should not have more than 4 patients on medical-surgical floors.
Mount is President of Health Professionals and Allied Employees union (HPAE), Local 5105. She said the health car caravan demonstration is designed to inform the community and mobilize support for safe patient-to-nurse ratios. She pointed out that the HPAE has negotiated 13 contracts with safe staffing standards including “sister local” at Cooper University hospital. Virtua negotiations began on March 30 and Friday’s final session will mark the 10th formal meeting. Mount stated that HPAE held a strike authorization vote and of the 800 members who voted, 726 voted yes to authorize a strike.
Virtua has claimed they have made generous wage offerings, but the union characterized the offer as uncompetitive compared to regional peers such as Cooper University Health Care.
Readers will recall, that in a previous article, the Mount Holly Reporter observed that despite its status as a non-profit, Virtua is so profitable that it was able to self-fund its major construction projects [like the one in Mount Holly] without borrowing. Virtua compensates its CEO at $3.5 million annually.
Mount noted that there is no structural shortage of licensed nurses. Rather, there is a shortage of professionals willing to work under unsustainable bedside conditions. Thursday’s demonstration indicates the depth of commitment by the HPAE rank and file. Mount said, “We sent a message today”.
The Reporter reached out to various Virtua Administrators including Shannon Stillwell, Julie Herb, Tom Gordon and CEO Pullin. None responded as of the publishing date of this article.
If you wish to help support the nurses in their struggle to get a new contract, HPAE has public petition that Local 5105 is compiling to present to management.
The petition link is here.