Striking nurses make counterproposal, call Saint Vincent Hospital’s recent offer its ‘worst proposal’

Striking Saint Vincent Hospital nurses have presented a counterproposal to hospital management after receiving what the Worcester nurses called the hospital’s “worst proposal” in the four-month stand-off over a new contract.

The nurses with the Massachusetts Nurses Association sent the counterproposal to the federal mediator late Tuesday night, and Saint Vincent Hospital received the offer Wednesday morning.

The MNA nurses said the counterproposal addresses “the need for safer staffing levels in all areas of the hospital to address a longstanding patient safety crisis.”

“The nurses’ proposal responds to the hospital’s latest offering, delivered through the federal mediator on Sunday, which actually is the worst proposal made by the hospital since the strike began, providing no meaningful steps in response to the nurses staffing concerns, reneging on a previous offer to eliminate controversial flex positions, with reduced wage and health benefit provisions from its last proposal on May 5,” the MNA nurses said in a statement.

Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare over the weekend sent over its third proposal to the nurses, saying this third offer “maintains generous wage increases, health insurance premium improvements for some nurses, and security enhancements.”

The offer would also boost resource nurse staffing, limiting how many patients these nurses can take, hospital management said.

The hospital said its most recent proposal also included more generous resource nurse language than what other MNA bargaining units at hospitals similar to Saint Vincent are settling for around the state. They added that they hoped the MNA bargaining committee would “carefully review the proposal and take the bargaining process seriously.”

“At first glance, it appears that the MNA did exactly what we told them not to do,” Saint Vincent Hospital said in a statement following the counterproposal on Wednesday. “They combined the best parts of each of our three options and surprisingly added even more.

“However, rather than do what the union did and dismiss this as the worst proposal they have given us, we are going to analyze it fully before responding,” the hospital added. “We are taking a fresh look at all of our options as well as what the MNA proposed. Given that the MNA pulled so many disparate things together to create this proposal, our formal response will take a day or two.”

The MNA said its counterproposal includes a mix of four and five patient assignments on the medical-surgical and telemetry floors, and increases in emergency department staffing — with the addition of resource nurses and other staff “to ensure nurses can promptly respond to changing patient needs, and those patients requiring more intensive care.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3AiD3hI