St. Vincent Hospital nurses’ strike: Worcester nurses file unfair labor practice charges, hospital ‘vehemently denies’ any violations
St. Vincent Hospital nurses who have been on strike for a record-setting 177 days have filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, as the hospital “vehemently denies” that it has committed any violations.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association on Tuesday filed the charges of unfair labor practices against Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare on the day the strike became the longest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts history.
It’s also the longest nurses’ strike in the U.S. in more than 15 years.
The nurses are alleging that the hospital has made “unlawful threats against nurses for striking or engaging in strike related activities, retaliation and discrimination against striking nurses for engaging in the strike and strike related activities, and rewarding non-striking nurses with preferred assignments in return for their refusal to honor the strike.”
“These charges are extremely serious as they allege significant unlawful interference in the strike, and extremely troublesome behavior by hospital management,” added Marlena Pellegrino, a longtime nurse at the hospital and co-chair of the nurses local bargaining unit with the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
During the strike, the hospital has hired more than 150 permanent replacement nurses.
“Filing unfair labor practice charges is a common tactic by unions to attempt to convert a strike to an ‘unfair labor practice strike,’ which would require the hospital to fire the 164 permanent replacement nurses it has hired,” a spokesman for the hospital said in a statement.
“Saint Vincent Hospital vehemently denies that it has committed any such violations,” the spokesman added.
The nurses and the hospital were apparently close to an agreement in recent weeks, but that fell apart over a back-to-work provision and unfair labor practices by Tenet, the nurses said.
The nurses had agreed to staffing improvements and were ready to return to work during the current COVID spike amid the delta variant, according to the nurses.
“… Yet a final agreement was scuttled by Tenet when they demanded the nurses accept an unprecedented and punitive back to work provision that is not only unfair to nurses, but its replacement of highly skilled nurses with lesser qualified staff, would undermine all the patient safety gains the parties had negotiated,” the nurses said in a statement.
The hospital spokesman said a contract agreement will be reached, “when the MNA ends its strike, agrees to our offer, and accepts the reality that we will not abandon nurses who stepped forward to care for patients during the strike.”
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2YfoKfB
Post a Comment