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Thank
You Brockton Clergy Association for an Historic and Moving
Candlelight Prayer Vigil to Help End the Brockton Nurses' Strike
The Brockton Hospital Nurses, who are now on their 56th day of their
strike for safe patient care and humane working conditions, are deeply
grateful for the efforts of the Brockton Clergy Association and the
Massachusetts Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice for organizing
and conducting a power and moving candlelight prayer vigil to support
a just resolution to the nurses' strike. Below is a description of
the event by Sandy Eaton, a nurse who attended the event, as well
as the story that appeared on the front-page of the Brockton Enterprise.
Special thanks go to Rev. Heather Kinnear of Christ Congregational
Church in Brockton, who was responsible for organizing the program
for the event. The nurses also acknowledge the work of the Brockton
Interfaith Community and community leader and activists George Pappas
who helped make the vigil such a tremendous success. The nurses,
who now find themselves in the longest nurses strike in Massachusetts
in almost two decades, drew strength from the event and the words
of encouragement and support they received from many of the 800 citizens
participating in the vigil.
Candlelight vigil draws more than eight hundred
supporters of striking Brockton Hospital Nurses
By Sandy Eaton, RN
Nurse at Quincy Medical Center
Participant in Candlelight Vigil
Brockton. July 18. Last evening clergy, elected officials, labor
and community leaders spoke with passion and elegance of the vital
role Brockton Hospitalšs striking nurses have traditionally played.
Densely gathered in a shopping mall parking lot a few hundred yards
from the hospitalšs emergency entrance, diverse groups and individuals
united in support of a just resolution to the fifty-five-day-old
walkout. Parking was hard to find in the lot filled with cars bearing
bumper stickers stating We Support the Nurses of Brockton Hospital.
AFSCMEšs green and white bus was there. As dusk approached, participants
marched up Centre Street two-by-two in silence, each one holding
a lit candle. Crossing the street, the line proceeded up the hill
abutting the sprawling hospital campus, eventually encircling the
institution with a ring of light. The striking nurses themselves
took up positions across Centre Street from the hospital, while their
supporters, probably including some senior citizens whom the hospital's
official spokesman recently dubbed "outside agitators," lined up
opposite them. As the latter half of the line turned back onto Centre
Street, those in it were moved by the sight of a double row of candles,
the length of the hospitalšs frontage, lighting up the night. Infants
and seniors were there, often marching together. A group of African-American
women from a local church spoke of wanting to stand up for the nurses
who stood up for them and their family members in times of need.
The aura was one of quiet solidarity, of a community united in support
of quality health care and those who provide it.
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