The nurses need to learn from the Normal (Illinois) Firefighters strike of 1978: The entire fireforce, including the captains and lieutenants, went to jail for 42 days, and the central issue was whether the captains and lieutenants would be part of the union (as the captains and lieutenants themselves desired) or part of management, as the city of Normal insisted. When the city council brought in a strike-breaking outfit, the three would-be scabs had to be sneaked out of town after there was almost a riot from a huge crowd beseiging the building where one of the outsiders was rumored to be located. (The private firefighting company hired was name Eagle. When the judge, not ordinarily a humorous type, who had sent them to jail for 42 days refused to extend the injunction, he remarked with a straight face that he understood the Eagle had flown.) All in all it was a glorious time. No one had expected that there would be such massive public support for a striking force in the middle of conservative Illinois in a town named Normal.
Carrol
The account referenced by the URL above is on the page of the Bloomington-Normal Trades & Labor Assembly. There are some omissions in it and false emphases. It is not true, for example, that there were no serious demos during the Vietnam War on the ISU campus. We came close to closing it down in May 1970.