Brockton Visiting Nurse Association RNs picket annual meeting

Registered nurses at the Brockton VNA (BVNA), who have gone more than 20 months without a new contract and nearly two years without a raise, conducted informational picketing outside the main entrance as the agency held its annual meeting on April 26.

Severely below-market wages for the nurses, combined with the lack of benefits for most newly hired nurses, are the key sticking points in the negotiations over a new contract. The stalled talks are now preventing the recruitment and retention of the staff needed to provide the quality home health care the agency provides to its patients.

The nurses are paid up to 30 percent below visiting nurses working at surrounding agencies on the South Shore, and even farther below nurses working in area hospitals. The BVNA is proposing a minimal salary increase that, for more than half of the nurses, would result in less than a 1 percent pay increase over three years.
“Patients receiving home care today are coming out of the hospital sooner and, as a result, come home sicker than ever before. And they require more intense care,” said Fay Alden, co-chair of the nurses’ bargaining unit. “This level of care demands the recruitment and retention of qualified staff, yet this agency lost more than 37 percent of its nurses over the last four years, primarily due to our severely below-market wages. We are being asked to provide a higher level of care with fewer resources and staff. As a result, the agency has suffered because we have had to reduce our service area and the agency is using more temporary nurses to fill staffing holes, which is more costly.”

The 50 Brockton VNA nurses have been negotiating a new contract since November 2004 and the contract expired in July 2004. A total of 20 negotiating sessions have been held, with the last session conducted before a federal mediator on April 18.

Nurses seek flexibility, benefits
Another concern for the nurses is the agency’s insistence on using “per-visit” nurses, as opposed to nurses who work a fixed schedule at an hourly wage. While per-visit nurses receive a slightly higher rate of pay for each visit they make, they are not provided with the same level of benefits as hourly nurses.

“The problem is that the agency is predominantly hiring nurses on a per-visit basis so that it doesn’t have to provide the same level of benefits,” Alden said. “The lack of benefits is severely hampering our ability to recruit and retain nurses, many of whom need these benefits.”

Finally, the nurses are concerned about their personal security. The BVNA nurses are often asked to work in dangerous neighborhoods and sometimes are required to provide care to potentially violent clients. The agency used to alert the nurses to potentially dangerous cases so they could take appropriate precautions, but it has stopped the practice. The nurses want the practice reinstated.

“This is an absolute outrage and a disgrace,” Alden said. “We are out there on our own, putting our safety at risk every single day. We have a right to know who and what we are dealing with so that we can ensure our personal safety.”

Alden concluded, “All of these issues reflect our concern that this agency has little respect for its nursing staff. We are the backbone of this agency; we are what this agency is all about. When you disrespect and mistreat your nursing staff, you are disrespecting and mistreating your patients. We can’t ignore this any longer, and neither should the communities that depend on this agency.”