ED staffing, wages, and health insurance are key issues in contract talks
Date: Wednesday, May 14
Time: 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Location: 88 Washington Street, outside of the main hospital entrance
Who: Morton Hospital RNs and healthcare professionals represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA); their friends, families, and coworkers; other local labor unions; and local elected leaders and candidates
Taunton, MASS. – The registered nurses (RNs) and healthcare professionals (HCPs) working at Brown University Health Morton Hospital, and who are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), will hold an informational picket on Wednesday, May 14 from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
The need for competitive wages and health insurance, as well as improved staffing in the hospital’s emergency department, are the key issues that have prompted the informational picket.
The RNs and HCPs have been bargaining for a new and competitive contract since December of 2024. Since then, Morton Hospital’s new owner — Brown University Health — has dug in on a wage proposal that would lock Morton’s MNA members in as some of the lowest-paid RNs and HCPs in the region, a scenario that will soon be compounded as other nearby unionized nurses begin their own contract talks and win wage improvements. This is the first contract the MNA members at Morton have negotiated with Brown University Health since it took over for previous hospital owner Steward Healthcare.
“Nurses and HCPs are in high demand today, and they can — and do — take jobs elsewhere when the pay is more competitive,” said Tiago Cardoso, RN, and bargaining unit co-chairperson. “If Brown Health does not recognize that and come through with a truly competitive wage package during these talks they will, unfortunately, see and feel the effects of that decision. Current nurses and HCPs will move on, and future nurses and HCPs will pass over Morton for better wages elsewhere.”
Brown University Health is also trying to force a lower-quality, more expensive health insurance plan onto the RNs and HCPs. “The cost of management’s proposed health insurance plan is punishing,” described Dawn Lima, lead medical technologist and co-chairperson of Morton’s MNA bargaining unit. “For a 32-hour/week RN at the top of the wage scale, management’s insurance proposal would cost them 16% of their salary. And for a 32-hour/week RN at the bottom of the scale it would cost 32% of their salary.”
Lima added, “Under these conditions, we’d be providing care to the community that many of us couldn’t afford ourselves.”
Hospital management is also refusing to improve the nightshift staffing levels in the emergency department by hiring two additional RNs. “Currently, the triage RN is often pulled from the triage room at night to take a patient assignment in the main ED,” said Cardoso. “This leaves the waiting room unattended by anyone with a clinical background, which is completely unacceptable.”
