At the end of a series of meetings with the rank and file membership today, the Brockton Hospital nurses' negotiating committee delivered by fax their official 10-day notice to go out on strike as of May 25th. The nurses, who are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, will resume contract talks with hospital management on Monday, May 14, 2001 to continue negotiations and are hopeful the hospital will take the steps necessary to negotiate an acceptable agreement to avert a strike. Negotiations on Monday will be held at the Holiday Inn in Brockton, beginning at 10 a.m.

"The ball is in their court, it's up to them to demonstrate their willingness to prevent a strike by negotiating a fair and equitable contract," said Linda McMahon, co-chair of the nurses' bargaining unit at the hospital. "While no nurse wants to strike, our membership is firmly committed to walking off the job on May 25 to demonstrate our commitment to ourselves, our families and this community. It is time for the hospital to show nurses the respect they deserve, and it is time to show this community and the patients served by this hospital that they are committed to providing safe nursing care. Under the current conditions, this is not happening."

Contract negotiations between registered nurses and management at Brockton Hospital ended yesterday with progress made on key issues, but not enough to stop the nurses from issuing an official 10-day notice to strike today. The nurses would have considered postponing giving notice had the hospital submitted a comprehensive written proposal that demonstrated a good faith effort to reach a settlement. No such offer was made today, which led the nurses to take the next step towards a strike.

"The hospital moved on Wednesday, but not far enough or fast enough to address our concerns," said Linda McMahon. "We are pleased that they have begun to seriously address aspects of our proposal to limit mandatory overtime at the hospital. But we are disappointed that they have not gone far enough to deal with the problem, and we are very disappointed that they failed to offer any counterproposal on the other key issues in dispute, particularly on our salary."

The nurses are seeking contract language that grants every nurse the right to refuse a mandatory overtime assignment if he or she feels too fatigued or ill to work safely. They also want limits on the amount of mandatory overtime assigned to a nurse to no more than 4 hours for an 8-hour nurse and no more than 2 hours for a nurse scheduled to work a 10-hour shift. Nurses who work 12-hour shifts can never be mandated to work overtime. The contract also limits the amount of times a nurse can be assigned overtime to 8 times per year.

The language calls upon the hospital to exercise its best effort to maintain full staffing in order to prevent the need for mandatory overtime, and it 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. The goal of this process is to limit the use of mandatory overtime and develop solutions to correct conditions, such as inadequate staffing, that contribute to it. If the two sides cannot agree on problems that arise, the language calls for the issues to be presented for expedited arbitration.

At the talks on Wednesday, the hospital did agree to limit the number of hours a nurse may work overtime to the 12-hour limit the nurses were seeking. They also agreed to limit the number of times a nurse could be mandated to 8 times in a calendar year. However, they continue to refuse to include contract language that holds them accountable to provide safe staffing to prevent mandatory overtime, and they have also not accepted the nurses' language granting the nurse the unrestricted right to refuse mandatory overtime if he or she believes they are too fatigued or ill to provide safe patient care. The nurses have been clear that they need to have the unrestricted right to refuse mandatory overtime, and the hospital has refused to accept the nurses' contract language or to offer substitute language that is acceptable.

The next negotiating session held at the Holiday Inn in Brockton on May 14 will be the third round of talks since the nurses cast an overwhelming vote to authorize a strike over their concerns about mandatory overtime, staffing conditions and the hospital's salary proposal.

On April 23, the nurses voted 330 - 68 to authorize the union's negotiating committee to call a strike if the hospital continues to refuse to address the nurses' key concerns.

In the last three years, inadequate staffing and mandatory overtime have been a regular occurrence at the facility. Since January, more than 80 nurses have been forced to work extra hours or entire shifts to compensate for a lack of appropriate staff.