A total of 21 employees at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. --15 nurses and six supporting staff--lost their jobs after failing to arrive at work during a blizzard last month that dumped around 40 inches of snow on the metro area. While hospital president Harrison J. Rider III insists that the move was the right one, saying he could not find "any redeeming circumstances in the behavior" of the terminated employees, nursing unions are up in arms. "We remain bewildered that the employer would depart from practices that go back over 30 years in how snow emergencies are handled," said Stephen Frum, the chief shop steward for Nurses United of the National Capital Region. Article