Message from MNA Labor Cabinet Chair:
HI EVERYONE I NEED YOUR HELP TO GET THE WORD OUT AND TRY TO GET PEOPLE UP TO ST. VINCENT'S ON WED. APRIL 19TH FROM 12 NOON TO 6 PM OR WHAT EVER TIME THEY CAN HELP DURING THOSE HOURS. THE REASON IS THAT TENET HAD A FULL PAGE AD IN THE PAPER ADVERTISING A JOB FAIR IN THE HOSPITAL LOOKING TO HIRE NEW STAFF. WE NEED TO MAKE IT LOOK GOOD WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE TO ENCOURAGE NURSES NOT TO CROSS THE LINE. I AM REALLY CONCERNED ABOUT NEW GRADS. NOT UNDERSTANDING THAT THEY SHOULD NEVER CROSS A PICKET LINE ESP. THAT OF YOUR FELLOW NURSES WHO ARE FIGHTING TO ASSURE THEM GOOD AND SAFE WORKING CONDITIONS IN THE FUTURE. TENET CONTINUES TO BE SCUM BY IMPLEMENTING THE PAY SCALE THAT THE NURSES ON THE PICKET LINE WORKED TO GET IN THEIR OVER 2 YEARS OF NEGOTIATING. TENET NEEDS TO BE STOPPED. THEIR PRACTICES ARE NOT GOOD FOR THE FUTURE OF NURSING OR THE FUTURE OF PATIENTS IN, MA. YOU NEED TO CONTINUE TO BE THERE AND DO WHAT EVER YOU CAN TO SUPPORT THE NURSES FROM ST. V'S. THEY ARE IN A FIGHT THAT WILL AFFECT THE FUTURE OF ALL OF US AND WILL HAVE An IMPACT ON WHETHER THERE WILL BE NURSES IN THE FUTURE AT THE BED SIDE. TENET'S KIND OF PRACTICE WILL MAKE THE NEXT GENERATION QUESTION IF THIS IS THE KIND OF PROFESSION THEY WANT TO GET INTO. WHERE YOU HAVE LITTLE OR NO CONTROL OF YOUR WORK HOURS. THAT YOU cannot GIVE THE KIND OF CARE PATIENTS DESERVE. THAT YOUR CHANCES OF BEING INJURED ON THE JOB ARE HIGH. THAT YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GET A FULL WEEKS PAY CONSISTENTLY OR IF YOU DO THEN YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY VACATION TIME DUE TO A PRACTICE OF "FLEX" TIME ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY MORE OPTIONS IN TODAY'S JOB MARKET. SO, GET UP TO WORCESTER AND WALK THE PICKET LINE, MAKE PHONE CALLS TO OTHERS, DO WHAT EVER YOU CAN TO SUPPORT NURSING AND "OUR" FIGHT FOR OUR FUTURE. THANKS KAREN HIGGINS
Message from MNA Director of Public Communications:
Mediator Schedules Talks Between St. Vincent Hospital Nurses and Tenet Health Care Friday, April 21th at 10 a.m. (Location To Be Determined)
WORCESTER, Mass. - The Federal Mediator for the contract dispute between Tenet Health Care and the registered nurses represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) at St. Vincent Hospital/Worcester Medical Center has scheduled a meeting of the two parties for Friday, April 21, 2000 at 10 a.m. The location of the talks has yet to be determined. This will be the first time the two parties have met since talks broke down on April 7, 2000. At the time of the April 21st session, the nurses will have been on strike for 22 days.
"We look forward to the opportunity to get back to the table," said Sandy Ellis, a nurse at the facility and a spokesperson for the nurses' bargainingunit. "Any time the two sides get together is an opportunity to reach a settlement and end this strike."
The issue of mandatory overtime is the single most important issue of concern to the nurses. Currently, the hospital does not use mandatory overtime. Under the new contract, the hospital is demanding the right to mandate double shifts for nurses, forcing nurses against their will to work up to 16 hours straight, something nurses believe is dangerous to patient care.
After a 6-hour negotiating session on April 7, talks between the St. Vincent Hospital nurses and Tenet Health Care broke down after the hospital refused to withdraw its demand for mandatory 16-hour shifts as a means of staffing the hospital in non-emergency situations.
At the last session the nurses made a significant concession to resolve the dispute by agreeing to work up to four hours of mandatory overtime. The nurses' proposal would allow management to mandate a nurse to work two hours of overtime plus two additional hours at the nurses' discretion. Additionally, a nurse would have the right to refuse mandatory overtime if and when he or she feels too fatigued or impaired to provide safe patient care.
The proposal to place limits on mandatory overtime mirrors a number of contract agreements MNA-represented nurses have negotiated at facilities where poor staffing conditions exist and mandatory overtime is used to compensate for lack of adequate staffing. The proposal also responds to CEO Bob Maher's public statements that, in most cases, nurses would not be expected to work more than two to three hours of mandatory overtime.
For its part, Tenet again demanded the right to mandate 16-hour shifts. Under their proposal, a nurse working an eight-hour shift would be provided only one hour's notice that he or she would have to stay an additional eight hours. Those who are mandated would be paid double time.
In other developments, The Worcester/Framingham Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO and Community Caring for Nurses (a newly formed community support/activist group) will co-sponsor a Candlelight Vigil to Support the Nurses of St. Vincent Hospital and Their Families, on Tuesday, April 18, 2000 from 7:30 - 9:00 p.m. at the Summer St. entrance of Worcester Medical Center.
The vigil will feature speeches of support from local community, political and labor leaders; clergy (from Greater Worcester as well as from the Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice), and nurses from St. Vincent Hospital.
The nurses have been attempting to negotiate their first contract with Tenet, the nation's second largest for-profit hospital chain, for more than two years. The 615 nurses have organized a union and been using the collective bargaining process to address their primary concerns about inadequate staffing levels and deplorable working conditions under Tenet management. Tenet's staffing levels are the worst of the 85 facilities where the Massachusetts Nurses Association represents nurses in the state. St. Vincent nurses on the day shift are regularly assigned between eight - ten patients on days, and between 12 - 14 patients on nights. A safe assignment is no more than six patients on days, and eight patients on nights. The nurses have iled more than 450 official reports of unsafe staffing assignments that "jeopardize patient care."
The nurses voted by a nearly three-to-one margin to authorize a strike on March 16, and issued their official notice to strike on March 17. After a 13-hour negotiating session on March 29, the nurses called their strike two days later. The nurses have been conducting picketing at both St. Vincent Hospital and the new Worcester Medical Center.
Tenet purchased St. Vincent Hospital in 1997, and has also built the new $215 million Worcester Medical Center in downtown Worcester. Tenet was scheduled to open the new facility and move the patients into it on April 1, 2000. The move was postponed for two days because of problems with care being delivered by more than 120 replacement "scab" nurses provided by U.S. Nursing Corps, a Denver-based firm that specializes in providing strike breaking nurses to hospitals involved in labor disputes. The nurses are paid more than $4,000 per week as well as food and lodging. The move to Worcester Medical Center took place on April 3, 2000. The MNA has received numerous reports from employees and physicians inside the facility, as well as from patients leaving the facility that the nursing care being provided is very poor, and that the hospital is in a state of chaos.
# # #
David Schildmeier
Director of Public Communications
Massachusetts Nurses Association
800-882-2056 x717
508-426-1655 (pager)
Message from Somerville Labor Party activist:
A couple of MA sites I've come across with support messages:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/CMAL_APWU/
http://www.seiu767.org/Local%20News.htm#MNA
Bill B
Action Summary:
(Ed.'s Note: Just when you thought the media had slacked off on their coverage of this strike, a flurry of new articles has been brought to my attention. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette has not been posting the most recent stories on its internet striking nurses coverage page. Thanks to Michael Malone, I've discovered such important articles as the one below on the local news page of the T&G. - SE)
Religious leaders throw support behind hospital's striking nurses
Friday, April 14, 2000
By Kathleen A. Shaw, Telegram & Gazette Staff
WORCESTER-- Religious leaders from three major Massachusetts denominations yesterday launched an interfaith effort in support of the striking nurses at Worcester Medical Center and St. Vincent Hospital.
The Rev. Bennie Whiten Jr., who heads the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ; the Rev. Edward F. Boyle, S.J., who heads The Labor Council of the Roman Catholic Boston Archdiocese; and Jonathan Fine, member of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said an interfaith vigil for the nurses will be held at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday on the Summer Street side of the Worcester Medical Center. They are also associated with the Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, an effort by faith communities to be advocates for worker rights.
They see the following as the moral issues connected to the strike:
Rev. Boyle said he expects to attend the vigil, but is still awaiting permission from Bishop Daniel P. Reilly of the Worcester Diocese to speak, because he is crossing diocesan lines. Rev. Whiten is also expected to attend, but he is currently out of the area.
The interfaith labor supporters are also concerned that the nurses are being forced by hospital management into overtime, which not only jeopardizes the health and well-being of the nurses, but sacrifices patient care. The religious leaders said in their statement, "Labor peace and progress in the United States has been built on recognition of the right of workers to associate freely, form democratic unions and bargain collectively. As much as any other aspect of this crisis, we deplore this action by strikebreakers." The replacement nurses are being paid about $4,000 a week. They are driven into the medical center complex in vans.
The religious leaders said rather than honor the nurses for their service to the community, Tenet is trying to "force upon them compulsory overtime resulting in double shifts of up to 16 hours of continuous duty." They said Tenet is also demanding that nurses accept "flex hours" and work days that could "deprive them of secure wages and income." David Coyne, a Jewish campus minister at Clark University, said a group of people from Worcester's interfaith community is also working to get local clergy to attend the vigil and speak out for the nurses. "The fact that it is being held during a holy week for Christians and Jews gives added meaning to the vigil," he said. Passover begins on Wednesday and Christians of the Western churches begin Holy Week, which leads to celebration of Easter April 23.
"Some people thought we should pray for a quick end to the strike. We believe that it is more than settling the strike. There is a moral issue here in the issue of forcing mandatory overtime," Mr. Coyne said. "We are a Catholic hospital and we are not doing anything contrary to the tenets of the Catholic faith," said Paula Green, spokeswoman for St. Vincent Hospital. She added clergy serve on the medical center board. She said mandatory overtime has been included in most contracts negotiated by the MNA, most recently at HealthAlliance in Fitchburg and Leominster. "UMass Memorial has it. New England Medical Center and Brigham and Women's has it. It is not unique to St. Vincent," she said. Ms. Green said the hospital is not "forcing" the nurses to work 16-hour shifts
She said people have a right to express their opinions regarding the strike, but she said the interfaith people might do better to "understand both sides and help the sides get together." She said that Tenet tried to avoid the strike and is doing what it can to end it. Management offered to take the overtime issue off the bargaining table and substitute something else. This was rejected by the nurses, she said.
© 2000 Worcester Telegram & Gazette