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St. Vincent's Strike
Teachers rally behind strikers
Saturday, May 6, 2000
By Shaun Sutner
Telegram & Gazette Staff
WORCESTER, Mass.—An estimated
1,500 members of the Massachusetts Teachers Association left their
annual convention yesterday afternoon to march in front of Worcester
Medical Center and demonstrate solidarity with striking nurses.
Strike leaders said the rally was the largest single
gathering of support since the strike started more than five weeks
ago.
"This makes me feel appreciated, something the
hospital doesn't seem to do," said Deborah A. Rigiero, co-chairwoman
of the nurses union bargaining unit. "This is great. I've never
seen this many people out here to support a cause."
The MTA members were delegates to the convention
at the Worcester Centrum Centre. The members are from throughout
the state and include teachers, aides, reading specialists, library
workers and other support staff at public schools and state colleges
and universities.
The delegates left the convention center about
5:30 p.m., at the end of the first day of the two-day convention.
Virtually every delegate at the event joined the march, according
to MTA leaders.
They paraded in a long line, three and four abreast,
down Worcester Center Boulevard to the main hospital entrance, where
about 100 strikers and supporters were gathered.
Chanting union slogans, ringing bells and exclaiming
their support for the nurses, the throng made a U-turn and walked
back toward the convention center. They made several more loops
along the boulevard before ending the march about 6:15 p.m.
"I totally support the nurses," said Mary T. Doyle,
a mathematics teacher at Burncoat Middle School in Worcester and
MTA delegate. "This has been long ordeal for them. I feel for them."
Some members of the teachers' union said there
are similarities between their work and that of the nurses.
"We're all in this together. We serve the public,"
said Louis J. Cornacchioli, executive secretary of the Educational
Association of Worcester. "In order for us to do our jobs, we have
to have the right working conditions."
Police closed the street to traffic for about an
hour while the MTA members marched.
A banjo-playing MTA member from Western Massachusetts
was not allowed to turn on his amplifier and sing to the crowd because
of a city noise ordinance that prohibits loud music within 200 feet
of a hospital, police said.
Instead, the banjo player read the lyrics from
some union songs and got some of the marchers and strikers to chant
along with him as a few patients held signs up to their windows
in support of the strike.
"The city said no singing here. I wonder what Tenet
Corp. had to do with that," he said. Tenet Healthcare Corp., based
in California, owns the medical center.
The nurses expect another big turnout of supporters
tomorrow, when nurses from around the state arrive in Worcester
for a rally that is planned in conjunction with National Nurses
Week.
Up to 1,000 nurses are expected, officials of the
Massachusetts Nurses Association said.
© 2000 Worcester Telegram & Gazette
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