PITTSFIELD, Mass., June 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The 800 registered nurses of Berkshire Medical Center, who are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, delivered notice to hospital management on Monday evening notifying them of their intent to hold a one-day strike beginning at 7 a.m. on Monday, June 18 and running until 7 a.m. on Tuesday, June 19.
"Our nurses have said it loud and clear: We will not stop fighting for staffing improvements that help keep our patients safe. We have demonstrated our unity with three separate votes and have persisted despite the length of our fight and management's divisiveness," said Alex Neary, RN and Co-Chair of the MNA BMC Bargaining Committee. "Today management offered proposals that do not make sufficient improvements for us to provide our patients with the care they deserve."
The BMC MNA Bargaining Committee – nurses elected by their colleagues to represent them – issued the strike notice after management refused once again during the latest bargaining session to agree to proposals that would improve the everyday staffing problems that confront BMC nurses and their patients. This despite nurses being open to various negotiating ideas around safe staffing and offering management the hospital's top priority regarding health insurance.
Negotiating Status
On May 25, management asked if nurses would be willing to explore their idea of creating Resource Nurse positions on all shifts seven days a week.
We said yes, we would if there can be an agreement with these criteria:
- There would have to be an adequate number of resource nurses on each shift in several of the hospital units. We said if they propose there would be only two in the whole hospital, that won't be useful.
- We would need to negotiate modifications to the current charge RN staffing specifically charges without assignment on the mother baby unit.
- There would need to be our proposed language that management will post and recruit to fill such positions that are necessary for the Hospital to meet its contractual obligations relating to RNs.
Management on Monday made proposals inconsistent with those criteria above and inconsistent with their own description they presented last week: There would be only two resource nurses for the whole 300+ bed hospital and only on days, none from 7:30 p.m. to 7 a.m., and they would not agree to charges or resource nurses in the mother baby unit.
A Brief History of Nurses Fighting and Voting for Staffing and Patient Care Improvements
BMC nurses have been negotiating a new contract since September 2016. Before and during negotiations, nurses have consistently identified unsafe staffing as a problem and have sought to address the issue in a fair agreement.
Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association