NEW: UMass Memorial Nurses Vote to Strike

Friday, April 12, 2013

Ashley Klann, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

Nurses at UMass Memorial Medical Center voted by an 83 percent margin to hold a one-day strike, following demands for better staffing levels and benefit concessions.

More than 2,000 nurses are being represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United at UMass Memorial Medical Center. The secret ballot vote was held throughout the day at Coral Seafood, with 83 percent of the nurses voting in favor of a strike.

The vote does not mean the nurses would strike immediately, but gives the negotiating committees the authorization to call a one-day strike if and when they feel it is necessary.

Once the committee issues its official notice to strike, the hospital would then have ten days before the nurses would go out on strike.

“With this vote our nurses are sending a strong message to management that something has to change; our patients are suffering, and nurses are struggling every day under dangerous staffing conditions that prevent us from providing the quality care we want to provide, and that our patients deserve,” said Margaret McLoughlin, RN, a nurse in the intensive care unit and co-chair of the MNA//NNU local bargaining unit on the university campus. “We sincerely hope that management heeds this message and comes to the table ready to work with us to address our concerns for the good of our patients and our community.”

In response, UMass Memorial hospital released a statement saying, “While we are not surprised, we are very disappointed to learn that the UMass Memorial Medical Center nurses represented by the MNA have taken a strike authorization vote. This vote does not mean that the nurses are on strike, nor have they alerted us that they intend to strike.”

“We believe strongly the outcome should also be consistent with the shared sacrifices that the Medical Center’s non-union managers and staff and five other labor unions representing more than 6,700 employees have already agreed to,” the hospital said, adding that the MNA has threatened Massachusetts hospitals with strikes eight times over the past two years because of alleged “unsafe staffing.”

The strike vote was called after the nurses on the University Hospital and Memorial/Hahnemann campuses of UMMMC have been engaged in over a year of negotiations for a new union contract, with what the MNA says, “little progress on a number of key issues, including the nurses’ call for safer RN staffing levels.”

The union said that nurses are outraged about poor patient care conditions, a lack of resources, and untenable patient loads following more than six layoffs involving hundreds of RNs and support staff over the last two years.

Nurses are asking the hospital to retract their demands for benefit concessions and to provide contractually guaranteed limits on nurses’ patient assignments, they said. The staffing limits proposed by the nurses are based on the best scientific evidence for quality patient care and, in the case of the maternity and neonatal units, on nationally accepted standards of best practice.

“Nurses at this hospital provide 90 percent of the care our patients receive. Most of us have spent decades in these institutions and want UMass to return to what it once was, which was the flagship system in the region, if not the state,” McLoughlin concluded. “Because of our commitment to our patients, this community and our professional license, we are determined to do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of our patients and the dignity of our nurses.”

The nurses and management began negotiations for a new union contract in February 2012 for the University campus nurses and in November 2011 for the

Memorial/Hahnemann campus nurses. To date more than 20 sessions have been held with each of the two committees. The nurses’ contracts officially expired on December 31, 2011 and April 5, 2012 respectively, and the next negotiating session is scheduled for April 12 with the University campus committee and April 17 with the Memorial/Hahnemann campus committee.