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[Photo: Massachusetts Nurses Association Facebook]<\/p>\n [Photo: Massachusetts Nurses Association Facebook]<\/p>\n
More than 4,500 nurses and clinicians walked off the job Wednesday morning at Mass General Brigham (MGB), the biggest private hospital system in Massachusetts, in the largest strike of healthcare workers in the state\u2019s history and the first by nurses at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital (BWH). The walkout includes more than 4,000 registered nurses at BWH in Boston and roughly 450 MGB Home Care clinicians\u2014registered nurses, occupational and physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, social workers and dietitians\u2014across Greater Boston.<\/p>\n
Thousands of nurses in red shirts ringed the hospital in the Longwood Medical Area beginning at 7 a.m., chanting and carrying signs reading \u201cBoston Strikes\u201d and \u201cNurses do the labor, MGB gave no delivery.\u201d The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) only called a 24-hour strike at BWH, while the much smaller Home Care unit began a seven-day walkout.<\/p>\n
MGB has seized on the limited character of the action at BWH to impose a lockout. Although nurses had planned to return to work Thursday morning, management is barring them from the hospital until 7 a.m. Monday, July 13, claiming the nearly 1,300 traveling nurses it has imported as strikebreakers require five-day minimum contracts. The one-day strike called by the MNA has thus been converted into a five-day work stoppage on management\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n
According to the MNA, Governor Maura Healey summoned MGB and the striking nurses to the State House Wednesday afternoon in move to broker a deal to end the strike. Nurses should be on guard that the Democratic governor will try to push through a \u201ccompromise\u201d agreement that bends to the demands of MGB management, and that the MNA will agree to it. Nurses should reject any deal that does not meet their demands and be prepared to extend their strikes.<\/p>\n
Brigham nurses voted by an overwhelming 2,798 to 12, or 99.6 percent, on June 16 to authorize the strike after more than seven months of bargaining in which MGB repeatedly proposed zero percent cost-of-living increases, pointing instead to automatic 5 percent seniority \u201cstep\u201d raises. Management is also demanding that nurses enrolled in the Harvard Pilgrim health plan pay a larger share of monthly premiums. Home Care clinicians, fighting for their first contract since unionizing in 2024, are demanding reasonable caseload limits, transparent productivity standards and wages that reflect the complexity of caring for patients in their homes.<\/p>\n
WSWS reporters spoke with strikers and supporters on the Brigham picket line Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Shauna, a Brigham nurse, condemned management for forcing the confrontation. \u201cI think that this is ridiculous on behalf of MGB to even get to this point,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are asking for a fair contract and nothing that\u2019s above or beyond their means, and I think that they\u2019re able to give it, but they won\u2019t, because of greediness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether a one-day strike could win the nurses\u2019 demands, Shauna pointed to the consequences of management\u2019s lockout. \u201cWell, a one-day strike is essentially a five-day lockout, so you won\u2019t have your essential and primary nurses inside an acute critical hospital for five full days. That is a big patient safety concern, and I think that it should make an impact in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n
She raised concerns about the strikebreakers now staffing the hospital. \u201cThey have brought in replacement workers. We don\u2019t know where they got them from, or how many of them are in the units, or if the patient-to-nurse ratio is even going to be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackie, a nurse who worked the overnight shift before walking out at 7 a.m., described the handover to replacement staff. \u201cIt\u2019s terrible. I was in there overnight, and the fact that we had to leave the patients without giving physical reports to the nurses was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her colleague Ashley said the notion that traveling nurses could substitute for the permanent workforce was absurd. \u201cNo one can do what we do here. No one can replace what we do here. Just highly skilled, compassionate nurses who clearly mean the world to their patients. We love our patients. Our patients love us. Everyone needs to just come together and rally against these big corporations who are trying to take the patients and what we stand for away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Juan Gonzalez and Gloria Gonzalez<\/p>\n
Workers from other sections of the working class joined the picket line. Juan Gonzalez, a member of Lawrence Firefighters Local 146, told the WSWS: \u201cAs a union brother, I like to support the MNA. Nurses are what we depend on when everybody\u2019s sick\u2014our children, our families\u2014and I believe in fair wages, fair conditions, safe conditions inside the hospital. So, when you get offered zeros, that\u2019s no good for anybody. Nurses are caring souls, they always give 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n
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