WORCESTER, Mass., June 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On Sunday, the
nurses of St. Vincent Hospital will mark their 105th day
on strike, making it the second longest nurses strike in
Massachusetts history and the
longest nurses strike nationally in more than a decade. The work
stoppage enters its 15th week in what has become an
historic struggle by the nurses against Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, a for-profit
corporation that has spent more than $75
million* to prolong the strike -- all to avoid being held
accountable for providing safer patient care.
The St. Vincent nurses strike surpasses the 104-day work
stoppage waged by nurses at Signature Brockton Hospital in 2001,
with the longest strike in the state waged by nurses at Burbank
Hospital in Fitchburg, which
lasted six months in 1980.
As the strike drags on, the nurses themselves remain as
committed as ever to the issue that drove them out on the street on
March 8th – the need for
appropriate increases in staffing levels to ensure the safety of
their patients on every unit and on every shift.
"While we are committed to stand up for our patients and
community, the length of this strike is a testament of how Tenant
Healthcare executives have chosen to reallocate their vast
resources for the last two years away from the bedside, placing the
health and safety of patients at great risk especially during the
worst pandemic crisis in our nation," said Dominique Muldoon, RN, a longtime nurse at the
hospital and co-chair of the nurses local bargaining unit with the
Massachusetts Nurses Association.
The strike has taken on greater significance since Tenet's
unseemly decision last month to cease negotiations and to threaten
to permanently replace the nurses, a move that has energized the
labor movement and heightened regional and national interest in the
nurses.
Support for the strike and the nurses cause was clearly
demonstrated last Saturday as hundreds turned out for a "solidarity
rally" for the nurses attended by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Jim McGovern, Worcester Mayor Joe
Petty, several members of the Massachusetts legislative delegation, as well
as and dozens of labor leaders from throughout the state and the
region.
"Nurses work hard to take care of us when it matters most and I
stand with them in this fight. It is time for Tenet to return to
the bargaining table and conclude negotiations so St. Vincent
nurses can go back to doing what they do best – caring for our
community," said Senator Warren.
"Tenet already made an unbelievable $97
million in profit this year. They have plenty of money to
address the concerns of St. Vincent nurses, but they won't. It's
just plain wrong," said Congressman McGovern. "I know
firsthand how amazing the nurses at St. Vincent are – they've cared
for members of my own family with incredible skill, commitment, and
love. They deserve to be respected, not replaced. Every day this
strike goes on does more and more damage to the St. Vincent brand.
If Tenet cares at all about this community, they will come back to
the table right now so St. Vincent nurses can go back to taking
care of our community."
The strike began on March 8, after
Tenet had refused to negotiate with the nurses over improvements
the nurses are seeking to improve unsafe patient care conditions in
the hospital. The decision followed earnest and painstaking
efforts over the last two years by the nurses to convince Tenet to
improve the patient care conditions at the facility, poor
conditions that have only been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Tenet's greed and disdain for nurses and patients was made even
more clear in the last year, as back in April of 2020, at the onset
of the pandemic, their CEO was quoted in the Dallas morning news touting their plans to use
staffing furloughs and funding from the CARES Act stimulus package
to "improve their cash position." And that Tenet did, cutting
staff and taking more than $2.8
billion in taxpayer funding to post a profit during the
pandemic year of $414 million, with
more than $97 million in profits for
the first quarter of 2021. Tenet's stock value also tripled, going
from a low of $21.76 per share at the
beginning of the pandemic to a high of $68.15 as of June 10,
2021.
St. Vincent nurses will continue their efforts to reach an
agreement to end a strike that is focused on improving staffing
levels and working conditions that have forced more than 700 of
them onto the street, conditions that before the strike, drove more
than 100 nurses to leave the facility for other hospitals with
safer working conditions. The nurses see no likelihood that the
hospital can replace them as the strike has been widely lauded
throughout the nursing community across the state and the nation,
as the nurses have been held up as being heroes for the stand they
are making in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
In the year leading up to the strike, nurses filed more than 600
official "unsafe staffing" reports (including more than 110 such
reports filed since January 1, 2021)
in which nurses informed management in real time that patient care
conditions jeopardized the safety of their patients. The
nurses also report their patients in Worcester have experienced an increase in
patient falls, an increase in patients suffering from preventable
bed sores, potentially dangerous delays in patients receiving
needed medications and other treatments – all due to lack of
appropriate staffing, excessive patient assignments, and cuts to
valuable support staff.
For a more detailed review of the staffing crisis, efforts by
nurses to convince Tenet to address the crisis, as well as
proposals nurses are seeking to improve patient care, click here to
view a previous press release on the matter.
*The estimate of $75 million
is based on Tenet's public disclosure at the outset of the strike
that the cost of replacement nurses was $5.4 million for the first
week multiplied by the 14 weeks of the strike,
and also including the city's confirmed weekly cost for
police details of $210,000 multiplied by 14
weeks. This figure does not include the hospital's cost for
its own expanded internal security force, the installation of
special high tech camera systems outside the hospital entrances,
and the fleet of buses and vans the hospital is using to transport
the strike replacement nurses to and from the facility throughout
the day every day of the strike. The MNA last week sent a
letter to Tenet CEO Carolyn Jackson,
requesting a copy of the contracts for the strike replacement
nurses so that the nurses, and the public have a full picture of
the resources Tenet is using to prolong this
strike.
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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the
largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members
advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of
nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of
nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view
of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies
on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
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SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association