Nurses vote to strike at NJ rehab facility for better patient ratios
Taken from NorthJersey.com
By Scott Fallon
May 20, 2026
About 70 nurses are threatening to go on strike at a large North Jersey rehabilitation center and nursing home in a move to force management to provide better staff-to-patient ratios, union leaders said on Tuesday, May 19.
About 98% of the members of Health Professionals and Allied Employees Local 5107 have voted to authorize a strike as leaders say talks have stalled with executives of the Phoenix Center for Rehabilitation & Pediatrics in Haskell.
Nurses’ unions throughout New Jersey have made staffing ratios a priority when negotiating new contracts in the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, when a large portion of health care workers left the field due to fear and burnout.
“Study after study has shown that enforceable safe staffing ratios do save lives, and we are ready to strike to ensure our hospital can provide a safer level of care,” Debbie White, HPAE president, said in a statement.
David Jasinski, a lawyer for the Phoenix Center, said management has been negotiating in good faith and has offered higher salaries to the nurses. “The administration works to provide adequate staffing for the residents every day,” he said.
The contract expired April 30. Bargaining sessions are slated for May 20 and June 1.
The Phoenix Center is a 227-bed skilled nursing facility offering short-term rehabilitation and long-term pediatric and adult care.
It was called the Wanaque Center when 11 medically fragile children died from an adenovirus outbreak in late 2018. It was one of the worst infectious disease outbreaks at a long-term care facility in New Jersey before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Wanaque Center was sold in 2019 and was renamed the Phoenix Center months later.