Amazing, isn't it? While the airwaves are once again bombarded with 24/7 reporting on another missing Peterson (how convenient for them the unmistakable alliteration!) there really are other things happening in the world. You'll have to pardon my cynicism but I just caught the first half hour of The Today Show and the major reports are on Stacey Peterson, a missing student in a European love triangle, and Marie Osmund fainting on Dancing with the Stars -- and that's just in the first half hour! I guess some stories must be deemed too boring for public consumption. After all, who cares about working people, especially if they come from Appalachia? Striking workers aren't glamorous and who cares about a part of the country relegated to stereotypes and derision? Oh yeah -- there's a major nurses' strike going on in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia....
Nov 16, 7:03 AM EST
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUR... Nurses' Strike Drags on in Appalachia By SAMIRA JAFARI
Associated Press Writer
HARLAN, Ky. (AP) -- Jerry Blevins has stood for weeks on a picket line with his fellow nurses, thinking about his mortgage, his tearful wife, his four children.
Pam Pace has been called names and listed on the "wall of shame" posted outside her hospital for crossing the picket line and continuing to work. Last week, her tires were slashed. "Someone's got to stay in here and take care of the patients," she said.
It's been a stressful seven weeks for the 750 registered nurses at Appalachian Regional Healthcare, the region's largest hospital system, which has nine facilities in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Six hundred nurses have refused to cross the picket line.
Some, like Blevins, have put their livelihoods on the line since Oct. 1, saying their goal is to ensure better care for patients. Others, like Pace, say they either cannot afford to walk off their jobs or don't want to abandon their patients....
