|
St. Vincent's Strike
Mediator Schedules Talks Between St. Vincent's
Hospital Nurses and Tenet Health Care
Friday, April 21th at 10 a.m.
(Location To Be Determined)
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's 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' bargaining unit. "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's 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's 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's 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's
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 filed 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's
Hospital and the new Worcester Medical Center.
Tenet purchased St. Vincent's 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.
Back to Strike Page |
