Nurses strike at impasse
St. Vincent makes new offer, nurses call it ‘not a serious proposal’
The almost four-monthlong nurses strike at St. Vincent Hospital will drag on, as the Worcester nurses on Sunday called a new offer from the hospital “not a serious proposal.”
The hospital over the weekend sent over a third proposal to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, saying this third offer “maintains generous wage increases, health insurance premium improvements for some nurses, and security enhancements.” This offer would also boost resource nurse staffing, limiting how many patients these nurses can take.
But after Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare sent over the proposal to the nurses through the federal mediator, the Massachusetts Nurses Association said it “provides no meaningful steps in response to the nurses staffing concerns.”
“Simply put, this is one step forward and two steps back,” said Marlena Pellegrino, a longtime nurse at St. Vincent Hospital and cochair of the nurses local bargaining unit. “It is not a serious proposal that will allow nurses to provide patients with the care and dignity they deserve from our community hospital.
“We are hopeful that Tenet will take this opportunity to sit down with the nurses and bargain in good faith — something they have refused to do,” she added. “For our part, the nurses stand ready to engage in good faith negotiations in an effort to end this strike that is now on its 111th day.”
The nurses will hold a meeting with the members of the bargaining unit today to review the proposal, and the committee will prepare a counterproposal to present to the hospital on Tuesday.
St. Vincent Hospital says it has made “multiple, escalating offers with significant concessions in past negotiation sessions, only to have each rejected by the MNA bargaining committee without a meaningful counterproposal.”
The hospital added that this third proposal includes more generous resource nurse language than what other MNA bargaining units at hospitals similar to St. Vincent are settling for around the state.
“We want our nurses to know we have thoughtfully looked at what other MNA bargaining units are agreeing to across Massachusetts and compared their baseline staffing to ours,” said St. Vincent Hospital CEO Carolyn Jackson. “These other bargaining units are prioritizing additional resource nurses, and they are coming to agreement with their hospitals without a workforce disruption.
“We compared our baseline staffing to these hospitals and found that we compare favorably with them,” she added. “This third option is more generous than what other hospitals are settling for.”