GREENFIELD — Baystate Franklin Medical Center officials are wondering why — in the final days leading up to a pending one-day strike — their current contract offer to the nurses is not being voted on, hinting that the stance could be part of a wider political push by the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
The union’s ballot initiative on safe staffing is set to be voted on in November’s statewide election. The Greenfield hospital’s interim president and interim chief nursing officer both questioned Monday whether the ballot initiative was influencing their negotiations, something the nurses vehemently deny.
“We don’t know for sure but we certainly believe in our offer and that it’s a strong offer,” Interim President Ron Bryant said. “The union leadership has not brought it to the nurses for a vote and we would like it to go to the nurses for a vote because we believe in our offer.”
Interim chief nursing officer Deb Provost agreed with Bryant that the hospital offer is a strong one. “I can tell you that union leadership is working with our bargaining unit with what they feel is what the nurses need, but not necessarily what all nurses want or desire,” Provost said. “So to put it next to the nursing staff ratio bill, I believe the staffing we have on the table is fair and will ensure that we continue, as we do today, to provide safe and qualify and effective patient care.”
Adamantly denouncing what Bryant and Provost were suggesting, the nurses union said this is not why the local nurses have not settled their contract yet. Rather, the Greenfield nurses — who have been negotiating for a contract since November 2016 — say they are making decisions based on what’s going on inside Baystate Franklin.
“Our proposal has been locally voted on, locally created,” Donna Stern, bargaining chairwoman of the nurses union, said. “It’s not based on the ballot initiative language.”
The 24-hour strike is set to begin Wednesday at 7 a.m. Following contractual protocols, the hospital will lock out its nurses, preventing them from crossing the picket line. The hospital will bring in traveling nurses, who will be at work from Tuesday at 7 p.m. to Friday at 7 p.m. The hospital said it expects this lockout, like the one last June, will cost them about $1million.
Stern wasn’t the only union representative to deny that the ballot initiative, that creates nurse/patient staffing ratios, was the reason Baystate’s current offer hasn’t been voted on.
“it’s not a reason, it’s not a reason at all. It’s all about the conditions at the local hospital,” nurses union spokesman Joe Markman said.
Instead, Markman said, the nurses are in talks over a specific staffing point — those “charge nurses,” who float between patients to assist their fellow nurses and make sure adequate care is met. The nurses state they want to make sure the charge nurse is not assigned to a particular patient, while the hospital wants to keep its flexibility with this employee.
“We don’t want to be prevented from being able to accept patients because that nurse can’t have an assignment,” Provost said. “If I were in the emergency department, I wouldn’t have to want to wait for someone could assume that care, if that charge nurse was there and able to do that. Because, again, it’s about the patient.”
If staffing ratios were passed, Provost said, then a patient might end up having to wait to be seen when there might be a nurse who could take that person. Markman countered, saying, “The fact is there are patients waiting in the hallway of the emergency department (now) because they don’t have an adequate number of nurses.”
Markman said the hospital is knocking their ballot initiative because Baystate Health’s CEO Mark Keroack is chairman of the board of directors of Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, the chief opponent to the initiative.
“That ballot initiative is driven by the MNA and the MNA is negotiating here,” Baystate Health spokeswoman Jane Albert said. The union is the primary donor in support of its initiative. To date, the MNA has donated about $1.1 million in support of the initiative, while the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association has spent $11,500.
“They’re the ones tying it to the contract,” Stern said. “Why are they doing it? Because he’s the president of the association and they’re freaked out about it.”
Stern continued to deny the connection between the negotiations and the ballot initiative. She said it’s the local union that decides on a contract — not the Massachusetts Nurses Association. She said this is all about “power and control.”
“They want to drag the ballot initiative in because, frankly, they’re scared it is going to win,” Stern said.
Bryant thinks the hospital’s current offer is strong and should be voted on by the nurses as it stands.
“This has been nothing more than a distraction for us that really takes away from our goals of providing the care on the day-to-day basis that we want to provide,” Bryant said. “We want to get to the business of making this the best possible hospital in the community and that’s how we feel. We have given an offer that we feel real strongly about and we should get on with business.”
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