Exploring the Ethics of a Nurses' Strike During a Pandemic

It's usually considered a violation of professional ethics for health care workers, including nurses, to refuse to work during mass medical emergencies, especially if their refusal is over concerns like compensation. Strikes and other forms of work stoppage may result in harm to patients and, therefore, violate professional obligations of beneficence. However, in rare circumstances a health care worker's choice to remain on the job despite risk or potential harm to themselves or even their family may be considered beyond their professional obligation. During a pandemic such as COVID-19, the ethical calculus (that is, finding the right balance between beneficence and harm before deciding on a course of action) must take account of a confluence of factors, including the risks to present patients, future patients, and health care workers; the severity and duration of the risks; and the availability of ameliorative or protective steps that reduce risk and harm. The principle of beneficence to both future patients and health care workers may be thwarted if the risk analysis is confined only to short-term concerns (that is, to concerns occurring within a narrow temporal window). If a significantly elevated risk has been demonstrated to affect nurses and other health care workers of color disproportionately, racial justice must also be considered. The purpose of this article is to assess the moral framework of a work stoppage by nurses during a pandemic.