Baltimore nurses hold historic strike, rally against Ascension’s hypocrisy

By Chuleenan Svetvilas and Michelle Morris

National Nurse magazine - July | August | September 2025 Issue

Registered nurses at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Md., held a historic one-day strike on July 24 to protest Ascension management’s refusal to address their urgent concerns about patient care, safe staffing, and high staff turnover in contract negotiations. It was the first time hospital nurses in Baltimore had gone on strike. 

The more than 600 nurses, who are represented by National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU), also made history in November 2023 as the first RNs to unionize a hospital in Baltimore. 

“We are striking because patients cannot get the best care due to hospital management’s staffing decisions that have led to a staffing crisis,” said Melissa LaRue, a registered nurse in the intensive care unit. “We want Ascension to come to the bargaining table so we can reach an agreement that puts patients first.”

Ascension Saint Agnes nurses have been in negotiations for a first contract since January 2024 with little to no movement on key issues. Ascension management has refused to address nurses’ concerns about short staffing, unsafe floating assignments, and RN retention. Between April and July of this year, more than 10 percent of Ascension Saint Agnes’ nurses left due to these chronic issues.

“We are seeing experienced nurses leave our hospital and the nursing profession altogether due to the working conditions at Saint Agnes,” said Robin Buckner, a registered nurse on the vascular access team. “We need to stop the exodus of nurses by improving nurse staffing. When we have too many patients to care for, patient outcomes suffer. This is why we are fighting for safe nurse-to-patient ratios in our contracts.”

The RNs urged management to invest in nursing staff and agree to a contract with safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios; floating procedures that prevent nurses from being assigned to units where they have not established expertise or competency; and no patient assignments for charge nurses so that they can be a resource for other nurses as intended.

In September, Saint Agnes nurses also held a rally and press conference to protest the Catholic hospital chain’s questionable financial investments. The RNs, joined by community allies, including members of the Baltimore Catholic community, revealed the findings in a new report by NNU, which found that hundreds of millions of dollars of Ascension investment holdings directly contradict the benevolent image Ascension promotes for itself as a Catholic hospital and leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

“We hope this is a wake-up call to the Catholic Church’s leadership that Ascension is far from the Catholic values it pretends to practice,” said Nicki Horvat, RN in the neonatal intensive care unit. “As union nurses who have lived Ascension’s hypocrisy, on our shifts and at the bargaining table, it’s still shocking sometimes to see just how far Ascension is from practicing what they preach. We want Ascension to do better: start by disclosing its investment holdings and then divest from these harmful corporations.”

The report, “Rejecting the Call: How Ascension’s Unethical and Socially Irresponsible Investments Contravene Catholic Social Teaching,” details the Catholic hospital chain’s investments in industries producing armaments and addictive substances, and engaging in labor law breaches, human rights violations, and climate destructive practices. These investments appear to violate investment criteria set forward by the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Chuleenan Svetvilas and Michelle Morris are communications specialists at National Nurses United.