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MASSACHUSETTS NURSE NEWSLETTER ::
May 2007
Tobey RNs picket, visit town boards as part of contract negotiations
Last month’s informational picket at Tobey Hospital in Wareham.
The nurses at Tobey Hospital in Wareham
are fighting for fairness and equality in their
current contract negotiations. Southcoast
Hospital Group includes Tobey Hospital,
St. Luke’s Hospital and Charlton Memorial
Hospital. Tobey is the only facility of the
group that is unionized and represented by
the MNA.
Joyce Hyslip-Ikkela and her son, Eli.
The Tobey RNs have been in negotiations
since September. The key issue in these negotiations
has been making sure the nurses
get paid based on their years of experience.
Nurses who have been hired in recent years
have received appropriate credit for their
nursing experience when placed on the salary
scale. But in the 1980s and 90s, nurses who
had worked at Tobey for many years agreed
to salary freezes when the hospital was in
financial trouble. Now these experienced and
highly skilled nurses find they are being paid
thousand of dollars less than the new hires
who with the same experience.
The nurses have presented a fair proposal
to hospital management that would correct
the equity problems but, thus far, Southcoast
has refused to correct these problems. As a
result the RNs at Tobey have decided to take
their story to the community. They made
their case before the local town boards of
Wareham and Bourne, speaking during the
public comment portion of the meetings.
Sharon Barsano, chair of the bargaining unit,
passionately explained that, “Tobey nurses
provide exceptional patient care. Many of
them choose to receive their care and the care
of their loved ones at the hospital where they
work.”
Meetings of town boards are video taped
and run repeatedly on the local cable televsion
station, so these efforts have helped to
get the message out to the wider community.
”Now we are asking for the community’s
help,” Barsano added. “We are frustrated
with Southcoast’s lack of recognition for the
excellent care that our experienced nurses
provide. The inequities we are looking to
correct are small—but the message that the
correction will send to our nurses is huge!
Support the Tobey nurses and support quality
patient care.”
The Tobey nurses also held an informational
picket on May 21 outside of the hospital
and passed leaflets out to the public as a way
of asking for their support.
Local boy supports the nurses
While walking the picket line on May 3, many
of the Tobey nurses and their supporters
were surprised to see a new face on the
line: a seventh grade boy whose grandfather
had been a patient at Tobey. The boy, whose
name is Jacob, is on the left with his friend in
front of the MNA bus. He came to the hospital
and walked the picket line with the nurses
for more than two hours.
Jacob’s grandfather had once been a patient
in the ICU and he used to ride his skateboard
every day to Tobey after school, leave the
skateboard at the nurses station and visit
with his grandfather for a couple of hours.
After his grandfather died, Jacob baked a
cake for the nurses.
He said he came to the picket line to show
his support. What he demonstrated was his
gratitude to the nurses who made a difference
and who cared for his grandfather in
his final days.
Jacob didn’t wear a suit or drive a fancy
car. He didn’t write letters telling you that
he values and respects you. But he did
prove that you do not have to be an adult to have class!
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