More then 250 nurses from the Brockton Hospital bargaining unit attended a meeting last night to review details of a tentative agreement reached last Friday, that promises to end their 92-day strike. The agreement, reached with the help of Senator Kerry and Senator Kennedy was well received by the membership. Below is a press release with more details on the agreement, along with upcoming events related to the strike.

Brockton Hospital RNs & Management Reach Tentative Agreement in Talks Hosted By Sen. Kerry in Boston

Pact Includes Staffing/Mandatory Overtime Protections Sought by Nurses

Nurses Will Hold Sep. 1st Labor Day Weekend Rally and Cookout to Celebrate Agreement 12 - 2 pm at Strike Office -- Political, Labor and Community Supporters Will Attend

Rank and File Membership Will Cast Ratification Vote on Tuesday, Sept. 4th The Vote Will Be Held at the Nurses' Strike Office (707a Centre St.) from 5 am to 5 pm Results will be Tallied and Announced Immediately Following Close of Voting

BROCKTON, Mass. — On Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2001, more than 450 registered nurses represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association at Brockton hospital will cast votes to ratify a contract that would end the second longest nurses' strike in Massachusetts history. The vote follows a tentative agreement reached last Friday after a marathon 14-hour bargaining session mediated by Senator John F. Kerry, which occurred on the 92nd day of the strike. The ratification vote will be held from 5 am to 5 pm at the Brockton nurses' strike office, located at 707a Centre St., directly across the street from the hospital.

The pact includes key provisions the nurses had sought through the strike to improve working conditions and patient care at the hospital. Specifically, the contract obligates the hospital to exercise their best efforts to maintain appropriate staffing to minimize the use of overtime to staff the hospital, provides strict limits on the amount of mandatory overtime, prohibits the inappropriate floating of nurses, provides the nurses with the ability to monitor the hospital's recruitment efforts and grants the nurses a 13% salary increase over the life of the three-year contract, which will expire on Oct. 14, 2003. The agreement also guarantees all striking nurses' return to work and includes a process stipulating how the nurses' return to work will be implemented following ratification of the contract.

"The ultimate winners in this agreement will be the patients of Brockton Hospital," said Linda McMahon, co-chair of the nurses' bargaining unit and an emergency room nurse at the facility. "Through this contract, the hospital has made a commitment to stop using overtime and mandatory overtime as means of staffing this hospital and has agreed to improvements in working conditions and hiring practices that we hope will allow our nurses to provide optimum patient care. In a broader sense, this strike and the agreement it has generated demonstrates that the Brockton Hospital nurses will stand up for what they believe in, no matter what the cost, to ensure our patients are protected and the best interests of the community are served."

Senator John F. Kerry played the central role in facilitating the tentative agreement. Staff members from Senator Kennedy's office in Washington also played a role in the process, as Senator Kennedy and Congressman James McGovern last year were instrumental in mediating an agreement between nurses at St. Vincent Hospital/Worcester Medical Center and Tenet Health Care, which ended a 49-day strike over very similar issues.

According to Senator Kerry, he had been concerned about the strike since it began and he took an active role in exploring opportunities for bringing the parties together two weeks before the Aug. 24th negotiating session. He started by making exploratory phone calls to both parties to see if progress could be made. On Aug. 20th, Kerry met personally with the hospital management and had conversations with the MNA throughout the week. On Aug. 24th, Kerry invited the nurses' 10-member negotiating team to his offices to meet. Upon the nurses' arrival, he presented a draft proposal from the hospital that he thought might provide the basis for opening negotiations. The nurses agreed and the hospital's negotiating team arrived shortly thereafter. With the nurses in one room and the hospital in another, Senator Kerry began a 14-hour process where he served as the facilitator for the talks, taking proposals and counterproposals between the parties. At 11 pm, the Senator walked into the nurses' room and announced, "I think we have reached an agreement."

Until the Aug. 24th session, there had only been three rounds of talks since the strike began on May 25th. The parties had last met on July 26. In fact, the language at the center of the dispute in the Brockton nurses' strike mirrors the language negotiated with Senator Kennedy last year to end the St. Vincent strike.

Below is a summary of the key provisions in the tentative agreement:

Staffing/Mandatory Overtime Protections

The tentative agreement includes language that calls upon the hospital to exercise its "best efforts to maintain appropriate staffing in order that overtime work is kept to a minimum." It also places strict limits on the amount of mandatory overtime assigned to a nurse to no more than 4 hours (and no nurse can work more than 12 hours), and limits the amount of times a nurse can be assigned overtime to 8 times per year. Most importantly, every nurse has the right to refuse a mandatory overtime assignment if he/she feels too fatigued or ill to safely care for his/her patients. The agreement requires the hospital to carefully document each and every instance of mandatory overtime and to review those occurrences with a staffing committee made up of unionized nurses and management.

A hiring committee will also be created under the new agreement, which will provide the nurses with an opportunity to review the hospital's hiring practices to ensure that staffing needs are being met. The hospital has also agreed to hire nurses to fill a critical care float pool to address staffing shortages in these areas, where problems with mandatory overtime and understaffing have been most acute.

If problems arise in compliance with the contract, the agreement is subject to a shortened grievance and arbitration process. It is this provision in the contract that caused the hospital to initially refuse to accept the language. To help break the logjam, the nurses agreed to language that controls an arbitrator's remedy regarding staffing levels. Outside of setting staffing levels or hiring to set staffing levels, an arbitrator may impose any remedy on the hospital if he/she finds management violated the agreement.

"Our primary concern was less the specific remedy of arbitration and more that the hospital commit up-front and in writing to make their best efforts to staff appropriately to avoid the use of overtime," McMahon said. "We have also received assurances from both Senators Kerry and Kennedy that they will be closely monitoring the implementation of this contract, and would assist us if any problems arose. It is the underlying assumption of this agreement that more nurses need to be hired to improve the working conditions that led to this strike."

Floating of Nurses

In addition to mandatory overtime, the nurses also sought protections against inappropriate "floating" of nurses to cover for staffing shortages in the facility. Floating is the practice of moving nurses around from one specialized unit to another. At Brockton Hospital, managers floated nurses from unit to unit regardless of their ability to or experience in working in that unit. Nursing today is highly specialized. It is not acceptable to move nurses from the maternity ward to the emergency room and expect them to function safely and competently.

The new agreement includes language the nurses had sought to protect them from being forced to work in an area where they were not competent to practice safely. Specifically, the language states, "A nurse shall not be floated to another unit without unit-based orientation in advance of any floating. Such orientation shall include competency orientation in the task the nurse is being required to perform."

"Again, the patients are the winners here, as they will be assured that the nurse providing their care has the specialized skills and training necessary to meet their needs," McMahon explained. "Under Massachusetts law, it is the nurse who retains the full accountability for the safety of the patients he/she cares for. It is important for nurses to have the resources to provide care safely, and that nurses are placed only in situations where their training matches the needs and expectations of the patients."

Salary

The agreement also provides a salary increase totaling 13 percent over the life of the three-year contract. The nurses will receive a 3% increase effective July 1, 2001 (retroactive to Oct. 15, 2000); a 4.25% increase effective Oct. 15, 2001; a 3% increase effective Oct. 15, 2002 and another 2.75% increase effective April 15, 2003.

According to McMahon, the improvements in working conditions and salary in the agreement lay the groundwork for a positive future for Brockton Hospital if the hospital fulfills its obligations under the contract. As the strike lingered on, many nurses found work at other facilities where more favorable labor/management relations exist, and a number of nurses are now working in Boston teaching hospitals where the pay surpasses that of Brockton Hospital.

"Our nurses have found a world outside Brockton Hospital that finds them highly skilled and valuable," said McMahon. "Once this agreement is ratified, the onus will be on Brockton Hospital management to show our nurses that they can be valued and respected here. We hope that this agreement provides a catalyst to efforts to recruit new nurses into this facility, but more importantly, to retain the dedicated staff who are so important to the recovery of this hospital after the strike."

Return to Work Agreement

Finally, the tentative agreement contains specific language detailing the process for the nurses' orderly return to work. The agreement guarantees all the nurses will return to work. Management is expected to begin calling some of the nurses back to work within four days of ratification, depending on patient care needs. Each nurse will have 10 days to report to work following written notification by management of their official return to work date.

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