Berkshire Medical Center Withdraws Unfair Labor Practice Charge against MNA Nurses

PITTSFIELD, Mass., Oct. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Berkshire Medical Center has withdrawn an unfair labor practice charge against its own registered nurses alleging contract negotiations have been "designed to serve" a statewide campaign for safe patient limits by the Massachusetts Nurses Association rather than the specific needs of BMC nurses and their patients.

"This charge was obviously just a public relations ploy, one of many baseless accusations Berkshire Medical Center has aimed at its own nurses rather than settle a fair contract," said Alex Neary, RN and Co-Chair of the MNA BMC Bargaining Committee. "Our contract negotiations are about our hospital and our patients. If management wants to reach a fair settlement, they will return to negotiations and agree to reasonable compromises such as eliminating or limiting the patient assignments of charge nurses to ensure safe patient care."

The charge was officially dropped by BMC on Oct. 13, 2017 when the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board approved the withdrawal. It included the false allegation that nurses had not made a "significant material modification" from their original proposals for seven months.

"The hospital's entire charge was based in an alternate reality," said Gerri Jakacky, RN and Co-Chair of the MNA BMC Bargaining Committee. "We have proposed local solutions to patient care concerns we are experiencing at our hospital. We have bargained in good faith the entire time and have made numerous revisions to our proposals. In fact, we were ready and willing to negotiate at any time leading up to our one-day strike. It was hospital management that ended the last bargaining session."

Background on Bargaining

The nearly 800 registered nurses of Berkshire Medical Center, who are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, held a one-day strike beginning at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 3 and running until 7 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 4.

BMC refused to allow its own nurses back into the hospital on Wednesday morning after their 24-hour strike ended. Nurses were ready to return to caring for their patients after advocating for them and a fair contract. The hospital said instead it would pay for replacement nurses from outside the community. The MNA is seeking information from the employer to obtain evidence that this is retaliatory and therefore unlawful and has filed an unfair labor practice charge over the issue.

Negotiations began in September 2016 and include a federal mediator. On May 31, nurses rejected the hospital's "best and final" contract offer by 82 percent. In July, nurses voted 83 percent to authorize a potential one-day strike.

BMC Nurses Fighting for Safe Patient Care

A pattern of BMC nurses being assigned too many patients to care for at one time, or not having enough support staff, has been jeopardizing safe patient care at the hospital for years. Nurses with unsafe patient assignments may not notice minute-to-minute changes in their patients' conditions, recognize the signs of an impending crisis, or have time to educate patients about how to take their medications at home. 

BMC nurses and other staff have brought their patient care concerns forward to BMC management in various ways over the last several years, including directly to supervisors, at labor-management meetings and during ongoing negotiations.

BMC RNs have also been documenting this problem using unsafe staffing forms. Between October 1, 2015 and August 21, 2017, nurses completed 437 unsafe staffing reports. The forms are a tool used by the nurses to document to management any time they are confronted with care conditions that in their professional judgment places their patients' safety in jeopardy. Read the reports here.

Quality, Affordable Health Insurance

BMC nurses have repeatedly requested data from BMC that the MNA needs to analyze the hospital's self-insurance rates as part of a proposal to create an additional "employee +" or "employee plus children" health insurance option. Citing management's months-long refusal to provide the information, RNs filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against BMC in August. Health insurance is a mandatory subject of bargaining under federal labor law.

BMC has proposed doubling the price nurses pay each month for individual health premiums. Nurses in BMC's family health insurance plans already pay 40 to 70 percent more than managers. BMC has also refused to consider any plan design, cost sharing, rates or co-payments other than what management first demanded at the beginning of negotiations nearly a year ago.

Berkshire Health Finances

BMC is highly profitable and its parent company Berkshire Health Systems is the dominant health care provider in Berkshire County. Over the last five years, BMC has made a profit of more than $207 million, according to the Center for Health Information and Analysis. In 2016 alone, BMC posted a profit of $47.2 million. That is a margin of 9.7% ? more than three times the state and regional averages of 3%, making it a real outlier among profitable hospitals. Read the CHIA BMC data here.

Despite this, Berkshire Health executives have repeatedly told nurses that BMC does not have the resources to make significant improvements to patient care. Yet they have managed to find extra revenue to fund large executive salaries. In 2015, CEO David Phelps' compensation was $863,000 and the top ten executives took home more than $5 million in salary and other benefits.

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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.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association