National Nurses United

NewsBriefs_Sept 11/6/10 1:29 PM Page 6 NEWS BRIEFS the pact meets the nurses' call for parity in pay and benefits with their colleagues who work at the UMass University campus. The agreement will provide a 1 percent pay raise in 2010, 1.5 percent in 2011, and the addition of four new 3.5 percent steps to the top of the nurses' stepped salary scale. At the end of the agreement, nurses at the top of the salary scale will be earning $58.68 per hour.  "It's unfortunate that my colleagues and I have had to take our issues to the streets, but our employer has left us no choice," said Lynne Starbard, RN, a nurse at the hospital and chair of the MNA local bargaining unit. "As registered nurses, it is our duty to advocate for our patients. This hospital system, which has realized profits in excess of $90 million in the last 15 months, has announced the closure of a medical-surgical unit at the start of flu and pneumonia season and when the hospital routinely declares bed shortages." The demonstration underscores the growing unrest between the state's nurses and a healthcare industry that seems intent on exploiting the current economic climate as an excuse to cut services, demand concessions from nurses, and gut patient safety standards. "Your fight is our fight, your struggle is the struggle of every nurse in this state and UMass Nurses Defeat Concessions to Win Contract MASSACHUSETTS T he power of the Massachusetts Nurses Association and NNU was felt in Worcester, Mass. last month in a struggle for a new contract by the 1,000 registered nurses from the UMass Memorial, Hahnemann, Home Health, and Hospice campus of UMass Memorial Health Care. UMass nurses staged a highly successful and wellpublicized picket and rally outside their hospital, which was attended by several hundred nurses from across the Commonwealth, as well as members of NNU who were attending the MNA's annual conven6 N AT I O N A L N U R S E tion being held that day in the same city.  The nurses planned the event as part of a campaign to beat back a number of concessions demanded by their employer, as well as to call attention to their concerns about poor staffing conditions and the recent closure of a medical surgical floor. The demonstration was the lead story on local radio and television broadcasts and was front-page news the next day. A week later, the nurses and management reached a tentative agreement on a new two-year contract. The pact was reached after the hospital agreed to remove all its demands for concessions by the nurses, including its plan to cut home health and hospice nurses' pay by 10 percent. Instead, W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G the nation, who is fighting to protect their patients in an increasingly dangerous work environment," said Donna Kelly-Williams, president of MNA. "From Cape Cod to North Adams, from Massachusetts to California, nurses are rising up and speaking out about efforts by hospital administrators to use the specter of health reform to make dramatic changes, the likes of which we have not seen since the advent of managed care and healthcare deregulation in the 1990s. We are here today to let your administrators, along with administrators across the state, know that we are united in our opposition to their practices and we will do whatever it takes to stop them from harming our patients and our communities." O C TO B E R 2 0 1 0

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