By Doug Cunningham

Eight hundred nurses are in the second month of a strike at Appalachian Regional Healthcare in Kentucky and West Virginia. The hospitals were founded by John L. Lewis but now use union-busting tactics. Collective Bargaining Director Richard Bank says the AFL-CIO is strongly supporting the nurses as they strike for better staffing for patients.

[Bank]: “Staffing is a very central issue here. These nurses feel that the staffing ratios are inadequate to ensure proper patient care. And there's also an issue of mandatory overtime. The combination of inadequate staffing ratios plus mandatory overtime puts quality patent care at risk. This is a critically important strike because nurses are the front line of health care in this country. And these nurses are standing up for the communities they serve and they're being punished for it."

The AFL-CIO is delivering tens of thousands dollars in support of the striking nurses, who walk picket lines in the shadow of a statue of the legendary United Mine Workers leader John L. Lewis.

[Bank 2]: "He'd be twirling in his grave if he could see what's going on right now. He'd be disgusted."