Brigham and Women's Hospital nursing union update

With the MNA nursing strike set to begin Thursday, November 12, Brigham and Women's Hospital will provide regular media updates as we did during the July work stoppage.

What to know for this weekend

Patient care

• Patient care remains our highest priority. Brigham and Women's Hospital will stay open and ready to care for patients during a strike. Skilled, experienced nurses will fill in and join our existing care teams. The majority of these nurses provided care during the July work stoppage and are familiar with the Brigham and our healthcare system.
• The strike is at Brigham and Women's Hospital and NOT at Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital or other MGB sites such as Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
• BWH patients should arrive to their scheduled appointment unless they hear otherwise from their provider. From Thursday on, patients coming to the main campus should arrive early in case of extra traffic and activity around the hospital.
• DPH surveyors will be on site daily to monitor continuity of care for our patients.
• The highly-specialized, life-saving care that we have always delivered at the Brigham will continue.

Negotiations

• The remaining issues at the bargaining table relate to compensation and benefits, including wages and health insurance. No patient or workplace safety proposals remain unresolved.
• Negotiations with the MNA are scheduled to resume Monday, Nov. 9.
• The hospital has participated in 27 bargaining sessions with the MNA over 11 months and has reached agreement on many issues.
• The hospital’s last, best, and final offer presented to the MNA on Oct. 10 reflected movement in response to priorities raised by the MNA bargaining committee.
• The hospital revised its approach so that all nurses would receive increases to their base wages rather than a blended approach where most nurses received a base pay increase and some nurses received a bonus.

Our offer

• Despite union claims, Brigham nurses would not receive a 0% raise in this contract offer. The hospital’s offer would keep our nurses among the highest-paid locally, statewide, and nationally.

• It provides increases to base wages for all Brigham nurses. For nurses at the top of all scales, it adds a new 2.5% raise in each year of the proposed two-year contract, providing a compounded 5% increase across the two years. It also preserves the existing 5% raises guaranteed annually for all nurses progressing through the 20-step wage scale, providing a compounded 10% increase across the two years.

• Our offer also includes:

  • No increase in the health insurance premium contribution percentage for current Brigham nurses enrolled in the post-tax medical plan;
  • 20 additional 36-hour float pool positions intended to address the union’s priorities of reducing agency nurse usage and floating
    • Agency nurses are typically used to address temporary staffing needs including providing coverage for permanent nurses on leaves of absence, periods of increased patient demand, and other operational needs.
  • Increasing our annual professional development reimbursement fund to $1 million.