Lori Cairo, a member of the New England Health Care Employees Union, chants with other workers at the entrance to Butler Hospital on Blackstone Boulevard in Providence yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

PROVIDENCE — Nurses and other workers at Butler Hospital yesterday picketed the East Side medical center hoping to pressure hospital operator Care New England Health System into agreeing to a new contract that limits the use of “travel” nurses.

More than 50 Butler Hospital employees trooped back and forth across Butler Hospital’s entrance on Blackstone Boulevard late in the afternoon blowing whistles, shaking homemade noisemakers and carrying signs with union slogans. Union members voted 188-4 to go on strike on Thursday at 6 a.m.

The picketing hospital workers, members of the New England Health Care Employees Union — an affiliate of District 1199 Service Employees International Union — slowed traffic along the boulevard as they called attention to contract issues. The three-year contract of the union, which represents about 300 nurses, mental-health workers, medical records employees and janitorial workers at the hospital, expired March 31.

“We’re really down to the wages and the staffing issues,” said Stan Israel, executive vice president of the New England Health Care Employees Union.

Hospitals have used travel nurses since the early 1980s, when a nursing labor shortage and nurse specialization spawned the specialty. Initially, nurses were brought in to staff hospitals to fulfill both permanent and seasonal shortages. As travel nurses became more embedded in the nursing industry, their work expanded to fill on-demand positions in specialized nursing areas.

“The issue is really whether [Butler] uses them to fill vacancies,” Israel said. “It’s been an issue for a while.”

Travel nurses, who work for staffing agencies, stay at a medical center for a short while and can cost more to pay than a permanent employee, when payments to the agencies are taken into account, according to the American Nurses Association.

The 117-bed Butler Hospital has used travel nurses in the past, said Patti Melaragno, the hospital’s marketing director, though she is unsure for how long. About 2 percent of the nursing shifts are filled by the temporary workers.

Care New England uses travel nurses in at least one of its other facilities — Kent Hospital in Warwick, according to Israel. Care New England also includes Women & Infants Hospital and Care New England Home Health.

“The hospital’s major concern is ensuring we have enough qualified staff to care for our patients and meet the requirements of the new mandatory overtime law,” the hospital said in a statement e-mailed to The Journal.

The state law, which took effect March 4, banned forced overtime for hospital nurses. The legislation prohibits requiring nurses to work more than 12 consecutive hours.

“Given the current nursing shortage, it is imperative that the hospital have access to agency or travel nurses to fill gaps created by vacations, leaves of absence or vacancies,” according to the hospital statement.

The union members are working under a contract extension as contract talks continue, Israel said.

The two sides expect to meet this morning to pick up negotiations on a new three-year contract, according to Israel and Melaragno.

Both said they are hopeful an agreement can be reached, though they gave no timetable for reaching a contract resolution.

pgrimald@projo.com