Massachusetts Nurse | October 2004

NLRB rules in favor of MNA in unfair labor practices by Baystate Health, Franklin Medical Center

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Region 1, recently issued a complaint supporting charges of unfair labor practices filed by the MNA against Franklin Medical Center, Baystate Health Systems, and Baystate Visiting Nurses Association and Hospice. The complaints charge that Baystate Health Systems violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by relocating visiting and hospice registered nurses from Franklin Medical Center (FMC) to another location and by denying the nurses their right to be part of the MNA and to work under the MNA/FMC union contract.

The NLRB issued a complaint on all the of the MNA's consolidated charges; has recommended that Baystate and its affiliates recognize the MNA union contract and remedy its unfair labor practices; and has scheduled a hearing relating to these matters before an administrative law judge on Oct. 18, 2004.

The MNA filed unfair labor charges against a unit of Baystate Medical Systems in Springfield and Franklin Medical Center (FMC) in Greenfield. when they eliminated the hospital's visiting nurse and hospice units. The FMC-based units included approximately 20 registered nurses, all of whom were protected by a collective bargaining agreement that had been negotiated on their behalf by the MNA.

Near the time that FMC announced the closure of the unit, it also announced that its parent company—Baystate Health Systems (BHS)—would relocate them to a new office in Sunderland; that BHS would combine these MNA-affiliated nurses with those from another (non-unionized) Baystate Hospital (Mary Lane Hospital); and that it would provide the same level of services to the same patient populations in order to guarantee quality care to patients whose well being depended on the care of visiting/hospice nurses.

While preparing to transition to the Sunderland location though, the nurses from FMC were made aware of a unique fact that seemed to affect only them as unionized employees: that their MNA/FMC contract would not be recognized by Baystate at the new Sunderland location, and that they would lose all their associated benefits and rights as a result. Meanwhile, nurses from Mary Lane Hospital were transitioning to the Sunderland office with all of their benefits and seniority levels intact—a move that clearly reflected unfair labor practices for the nurses and MNA alike.

"Hospice nurses do what we do because we love it passionately and because we're able to help patients at a time when they need a really unique level of care," said Janice Fisk, a hospice RN and the former bargaining unit representative for the hospice group prior to its removal from FMC. "That is why more than 90 percent of the nurses in this unit moved to the new Sunderland location. But doing so wasn't always an easy decision."

"Many of those nurses gave up 12-plus years of seniority, which, for some, meant losing hours of accumulated sick time and weeks worth of vacation," added Joanne Calloon, an RN and co-chair of the FMC bargaining unit. "For others it meant taking an hourly pay cut that was significant enough that they needed to take on more days per week. And often the changes meant that some nurses were no longer eligible for certain benefits. It was frustrating because they had all of these things protected when they were at FMC, which is owned by BHS. But now that they're doing the same job for the same patients via another BHS-owned facility, they're no longer protected by their negotiated contract. What's even more frustrating though is that the non-unionized nurses who moved to the Sunderland office from other facilities arrived with their benefits and seniority levels intact."

This discrepancy in treatment/recognition led the NLRB to evaluate the operations and services of BHS and FMC, as well as other pertinent affiliates, and it was determined that they "constitute a single-integrated business enterprise and a single employer." As a result, the FMC bargaining unit "constitutes a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining."

The NLRB also said in its recent ruling that "the respondents (BHS, FMC, etc.) granted preference in terms and conditions of employment at its Sunderland facility only to its employees who did not engage in union activities or belong to the FMC unit." In addition, the NLRB ruled that the previously outlined conduct was and is "inherently destructive of the rights guaranteed" to union employees.

"Based on this level on conduct, BHS—with full support from FMC—has been interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed under their contract," added Shirley Astle, the MNA Associate Director who works with the unit at FMC. "It's a union-busting effort in its most pure form."

For Elaine Lemieux, RN and the former bargaining unit representative for the VNA group prior to its removal from FMC, the decision by BHS to alienate its unionized nurses represents something even more unnerving: the potential loss of excellent, dedicated nurses. "When this situation started to develop, my colleagues decided that the thing we needed to do first was to protect our patients. We didn't even want them to sense the tiniest blip in service. We're proud to say that we've succeeded, but it's disconcerting to know that BHS and FMC would do this now—during a terrible and overwhelming nursing crisis, when it's hard to find and retain good nurses. This is how a medical facility loses its high-quality staff."