In an action designed to draw attention to the chronic shortage of nurses across the nation, a Washington, DC law firm last week filed four class-action suits alleging that hospitals in four cities are illegally colluding to drive down wages.
The suits, filed in Chicago, San Antonio, Albany, and Memphis, accuse hospital administrators of agreeing not to compete with one another over nurse wages.
In 2001, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the number of registered nurses had been declining for several years and noted that a near-flat growth in wages was one of many factors contributing to the decline. Median salaries for RNs have been at or below the change-rate of the consumer price index since the early 1990s, the GAO noted. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average annual income for registered nurses in 2004 was $52,330.
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