Nurses picket inn

Friday, April 28, 2000

By Jean Laquidara Hill
Telegram & Gazette Staff

AUBURN, Mass.—About 25 Worcester Medical Center nurses and supporters picketed outside the Ramada Inn last night, shouting "Go home, scabs!" to substitute nurses as they arrived at the motel in vans with shaded windows.

The striking nurses have been replaced with about 125 nurses from U.S. Nursing Corp. of Denver and elsewhere. The replacement nurses have been staying at the Ramada Inn, among other places.

Two Auburn patrol officers watched the pickets from the parking lot, noting the nurses were lawfully remaining on the sidewalk and not causing any problems.

Cardiac nurse Deborah Siplas of Worcester said the purpose of the picketing was to peacefully confront the substitute nurses and try to make them think about how they are interfering with the ability of striking nurses and Worcester Medical Center management to reach an agreement.

About 80 percent of the 535 full-time Worcester Medical Center nurses went on strike March 31, principally over management wanting nurses to work mandatory overtime shifts. They are members of Massachusetts Nurses Association and have been joined on the picket lines by friends, college students, other union members, spouses and children.

As Ms. Siplas picketed at the Ramada Inn, her children, Andrew, 13 and Kathleen, 10, carried signs, watched for vans carrying nurses and yelled for them to go home.

Kathleen's sign said: "Scabs, you can't run and you can't hide."

"We want them to know they're really just prolonging the strike for everyone. They can't prolong their anonymity any longer," Ms. Siplas said. "Certainly, we wouldn't do anything to injure them."

Ms. Siplas said she and some of the other striking nurses have been working at hospitals and other medical facilities on a per-diem basis. She said she could easily find another full-time nursing job, but misses her patients.

Nurse Rosemary Stone said she has been too busy helping organize the picket lines to work, and she hopes to return to her full-time nursing job under an appropriate contract soon. Ms. Stone said the replacement nurses have been staying mostly at Worcester hotels, but also other places out of the city.

State Rep. Paul K. Frost, R-Auburn, was at the Ramada Inn for his 30th birthday party and joined the picket line for a while. He said he would have selected another site for his party if he had known the replacement nurses were staying at the hotel because he supports the striking nurses.

Inside the Ramada Inn, no replacement nurses were in any of the common areas, and the motel manager declined to allow a reporter to knock on the doors of their rooms, saying the motel is their home for now and they should be allowed privacy.

© 2000 Worcester Telegram & Gazette

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