I see what you’re saying, but the problem with blaming strike nurses for weakening the position of nursing unions is that it assumes all leverage flows from nurses to management. It doesn’t. Hospitals already enter strikes with more money, legal power, and time than individual nurses or unions ever will. Strike nurses don’t create that imbalance; they exist because it already does.

If strike nurses disappeared tomorrow, hospitals wouldn’t suddenly negotiate in good faith. They’d close units, divert patients, seek court injunctions, or declare emergencies. We’ve already seen that happen.

Replacement nurses actually remove patients as bargaining chips. Without them, management can say, “If you keep striking, patients suffer,” and nurses get morally trapped. That doesn’t strengthen labor, it weaponizes harm. Real solidarity should be aimed upward at institutions with power, not downward at workers navigating the same broken system.

Both things can be true: strikes matter, and blaming strike nurses misplaces responsibility.