It’s day three of the nurse’s strike outside Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

At the head of the dispute between the nurse’s union and the hospital is a lack of guarantees the nurses wanted when it comes to staffing ratios on floors and improvements with health benefits.

“We do deserve a fair raise, but we are out here for our patients," said registered nurse Carol Tanzi, "We are not staffed properly to take care of the sick patients that are at our hospital. If we had the kind of staffing that’s in there right now (that the hospital is providing) we wouldn’t be out here.” The hospital spent millions of dollars to hire replacement nurses. They’re paying $17 million for one week of replacement staffing.

The hospital says it offered a fair contract that makes these nurses the highest paid in New Jersey. The hospital also says they offered arbitration, but the union rejected that offer.

Last week, a spokesperson released a statement saying, “We are deeply disappointed that the union has decided to take this extreme action. It did not and should not have come to this. This is not a strike of necessity and could have been avoided had the union not been so intent on this outcome. No one benefits from a strike, least of all, our nurses.”

Tanzi said there was a lot of talk about coming back to the negotiating table, but nothing is on the books. 

The nurses on strike are not getting paid during this time and many are filing for unemployment.