Three hundred and fifty registered nurses at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nevada held an informational picket on June 11, 2026, outside the hospital on N. Arlington Ave. — citing Prime Healthcare’s firing of two RN union leaders and eleven months of stalled contract negotiations with no resolution in sight. The picket ran 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. under the banner of the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC/NNU), which represents Saint Mary’s nursing staff.
The core grievance is not complicated: Prime Healthcare terminated two registered nurses who were active in union organizing, and the nurses say those firings were direct retaliation for protected labor activity. NNOC filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB. Contract bargaining opened in July 2025. Eleven months later, nurses say Prime has refused to move meaningfully on wages, staffing, and the reinstatement of the terminated union leaders.
The June 11 Timeline Across Prime Facilities
June 11 saw coordinated nurse actions at three Prime Healthcare properties on the same day: the Chicago ULP strike at Saint Mary of Nazareth (24-hour walkout, 6 nurses fired), the Reno informational picket at Saint Mary’s Regional, and a strike vote and informational picket at Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding, California, where nurses and healthcare workers organized by NNOC and SEIU are demanding safe staffing ratios and a fair contract.
Coordinated actions across multiple Prime properties on the same day are a union escalation tactic — the goal is to demonstrate system-wide dissatisfaction with Prime management and create reputational pressure at the corporate level, not just the individual facility. Whether that strategy moves Prime at the bargaining table in Reno remains to be seen.
What Reno Nurses Are Seeking
Reno nurses have been working under an expired contract since mid-2025. Their listed priorities: competitive wages that keep pace with the Nevada and California markets (which set the regional reference point), reinstatement of the two terminated union leaders with back pay, meaningful staffing language in the next contract, and good-faith bargaining from Prime management. The informational picket was a visibility action, not a work stoppage — nurses picketed on their days off and during breaks.
Prime Healthcare is a for-profit, 45-hospital chain. Its facilities have been involved in multiple NLRB cases nationally in 2025–2026. The company’s standard response to union campaigns has followed a recognizable pattern: increased management presence during organizing drives, scrutiny of union-active nurses for policy violations, and lengthy bargaining processes that delay contracts while nurses work under expired agreements. Nurses who stay in these fights tend to be the ones who know their NLRA Section 7 rights cold and document everything.
Where the Contract Stands
As of the June 11 picket, NNOC stated that movement at the bargaining table has been insufficient and that they would continue to escalate if Prime does not return to meaningful negotiations. The union did not announce a strike date at Reno on June 11. The ULP charge related to the terminations is pending at the NLRB; if the agency finds merit and issues a complaint, Prime would face potential make-whole remedies including reinstatement and back pay for the fired nurses.
For nurses considering travel contracts at Prime facilities, or evaluating employment at any Prime hospital: the labor climate at Prime properties nationally has been contentious in 2025–2026. That doesn’t make them all bad employers — individual unit cultures vary significantly — but it does mean you should research the specific facility’s labor history before signing a long-term contract or accepting a per-diem arrangement where you’d be crossing a potential picket line.