St. Vincent's Strike

Results of Friday's Negotiations: 

After nine hours of negotiations, talks break down.  Hospital suggests "baseball-syle" arbitration in which each side submits their last offer and an outside party (arbitrator) "picks" one of the two offers, in order to settle strike.

St. Vincent's nurses balk at this tactic as they will not subject their position to (i.e., put their futures in the hands of) a third party.

The nurses and the Worcester community made it clear that 16 hours of overtime is dangerous and believe Tenet has the responsibility to change its position in order to settle the strike

Read Worcester Telegram & Gazette News
 

Friday, May 5, 2000
By Chris Pope
Telegram & Gazette Staff 

WORCESTER, Mass.—Worcester Medical Center managers and the hospital's striking nurses struggled through nine hours of negotiations yesterday.

That easily beat the 20 minutes of talking that took place the last time the two sides met. But in the end, the result was the same -- no progress toward a settlement, and at least for now, nothing else to talk about.

Yesterday's breakdown of negotiations left Debra A. Rigiero, co-chairman of the nurses' bargaining team bitter and pessimistic about the chances of settling the five-week-old contract battle anytime soon.

"I'm so angry right now. I'm just so very, very angry," Mrs. Rigiero said. "I feel like once again we have been slapped in the face."

For his part, Worcester Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Robert E. Maher Jr. said the union's rejection of a new offer by the hospital to send the dispute to binding arbitration has left negotiations pretty much where they were on Day 1 of the strike.

"We thought it best to move the issue to binding arbitration," Mr. Maher said. "We thought if we were being unfair, an arbitrator would tell, and if the union was being unfair an arbitrator would tell them that ... Our thought was let's get this thing taken care of."

"We are not going to put this decision in a third party's hands," responded David C. Schildmeier, spokesman for the nurses' association.

Some 535 full-time and 80 per diem registered nurses walked off their jobs at the medical center March 31, after two years of contract talks with Tenet Healthcare Corp., the hospital's California-based, for-profit operator.

The strike began a day before the nurses were scheduled to move from St. Vincent's Hospital on Vernon Hill to Worcester Medical Center downtown. The new downtown hospital is also owned by Tenet.

The hospital has continued to operate with nurse managers, 125 nurses supplied by U.S. Nursing Corp. of Denver, and another 125 nurses who have crossed picket lines set up by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the strikers' bargaining representative.

The sticking point going into yesterday's negotiations was mandatory overtime. Initially, the nurses said they wanted a contract without any mandatory overtime. They later said they would be willing to work up to two hours of overtime each shift and an additional two hours of overtime per shift in emergencies. That proposal allowed nurses to refuse overtime if they felt they were too tired to provide safe patient care.

According to Mr. Schildmeier, the nurses showed their willingness to compromise further yesterday with a proposal that would give the hospital the right to require each nurse to work up to four hours overtime for whatever reason, provided the number of involuntary shifts was held to eight per year and to no more than two per quarter.

"This was a major concession for us," he said. "Under this proposal they could mandate 20,000 hours of overtime annually."

"That's a good spin, but it doesn't work," responded Mr. Maher. He said the union's proposal to limit the hospital's right to require overtime to two shifts per quarter for each nurse failed to take into account the seasonal fluctuations in patient population.

"Everyone knows there are peak census periods and non-peak periods," Mr. Maher said. "As far as going from two hours of overtime to four hours, we don't regard that as a major concession at all."

The hospital wants the right to require eight hours of overtime per shift, or 16-hour shifts in total, with the last eight at double wages. In the alternative, Mr. Maher has said he is agreeable to a flex policy that would give management the right to send nurses home without pay on days when the patient census is low.

Mr. Maher said the hospital's managers don't understand why the nurses union refuses to consider mandatory overtime at Worcester Medical Center, while just last Friday the union signed off on a contract at Tenet-owned MetroWest Health System's Leonard Morse campus in Natick that includes mandatory overtime.

"It's perplexing," Medical Center spokeswoman Paula L. Green said Tuesday. "That agreement provides for reasonable overtime. We're kind of wondering why we can't have the same thing."

Mr. Schildmeier said the discrepancy simply means that Worcester Medical Center nurses consider limiting mandatory overtime to be a critically important component of an agreement.

"Absolutely, it's important," said Cheryl McKenna, one of those waiting for word on the negotiations yesterday at the striking nurses' headquarters at 29 Endicott St. "The fact that a truck driver can't work for more than 10 hours a day, but we can be required to give meds and make life-changing decisions 16 hours a day, is just incredible."

"They want 16 hours a day and we can't give it to them," said Mr. Schildmeier. "Sixteen hours a day is too much. They played games with us today."

For Mr. Maher, however, the union's turndown of binding arbitration is a sign that at least for now it is willing to let the strike game continue.

"We made it very clear that we want people back to work, and that this seemed to be a way to get them back," he said. "The union doesn't seem to want that."

As an expression of solidarity, members of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which is holding its convention at Worcester Centrum Centre, will join the striking Worcester nurses on the picket line today. According to Mrs. Rigiero, co-chairman of the MNA's Worcester bargaining unit, she will talk to the teachers at 5 p.m. and then lead more than 1,000 MTA members on a march from the Centrum to the nurses' picket line.

Also, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the teachers' convention, will speak at 12:30 p.m. at a rally in support of the nurses slated for the intersection of Worcester Center Boulevard and Foster Street.

The nurses association has also declared Sunday "Nurse Day" on the picket line to celebrate National Nurses Week, which runs from May 6 to 12. Mr. Schildmeier said nurses from across the state will join the striking nurses on the picket line from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. 

       © 2000 Worcester Telegram & Gazette

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