St. Vincent Nurses and Tenet Management Resume Negotiations on Wednesday, May 5 As Nurses Will Present Comprehensive Proposal in Hopes to Reach Agreement

The Strike Continues into Week 9

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May 04, 2021, 12:40 ET

WORCESTER, Mass., May 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The nurses of St. Vincent Hospital and Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare will hold their third round of negotiations on Wednesday, with talks beginning at 10 a.m. as the nurses will present a comprehensive proposal to address the longstanding patient safety crisis that forced the nurses out onto the street on March 8.

This round of talks followed Tenet's presentation on Saturday, where the corporation for the first time made a long-awaited proposal that opens the door to a substantive discussion on the nurses' main issue, which is the need for safer staffing levels to ensure safer patient care.

"We see Tenet's move on Saturday as a positive step in the process, and we look forward to Wednesday where we can present our own proposal that will make clear what the nurses and patients at St. Vincent Hospital need to protect this community and allow us to end the strike," said Marlena Pellegrino, RN, longtime nurse at the hospital and co-chair of the nurses local bargaining unit with the Massachusetts Nurses Association.

Following Saturday's session, the nurses' negotiating committee met to carefully evaluate the hospital's proposal and to create their own proposal in response, one that carefully and clearly delineates all the changes and improvements the nurses need to reach a settlement. Wednesday will mark the nurses' 59^th day on strike.

The strike began on March 8, after Tenet had refused to negotiate with the nurses over improvements the nurses are seeking to improve unsafe patient care conditions in the hospital. The decision followed earnest and painstaking efforts over the last two years by the nurses to convince Tenet to improve the patient care conditions at the facility, poor conditions that have only been exacerbated by the pandemic.

The nurses' strike has galvanized support from a variety of public officials, labor, faith-based organizations, and community advocates, including the entire Worcester City Council, the Worcester state legislative delegation, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Edward Markey Congressman Jim McGovern, Congresswoman Lori Trahan, and Attorney General Maura Healy, who have all visited the nurses strike line. Senators Warren, Markey and Congressman McGovern sent their own letter to Tenet's CEO in Dallas urging Tenet to negotiate with the nurses to address the nurses' concerns over needed staffing improvements to ensure safe care. On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Building Trades Council delivered a letter to Tenet CEO Carolyn Jackson announcing that the council will not be sending its 75,000 members to the hospital for care until the strike is resolved.

In the last year alone, nurses have filed more than 600 official "unsafe staffing" reports (more than 110 such reports have been filed since January 1, 2021) in which nurses informed management in real time that patient care conditions jeopardized the safety of their patients. The nurses also report their patients in Worcester have experienced an increase in patient falls, an increase in patients suffering from preventable bed sores, potentially dangerous delays in patients receiving needed medications and other treatments – all due to lack of appropriate staffing, excessive patient assignments, and cuts to valuable support staff.

For a more detailed review of the staffing crisis, efforts by nurses to convince Tenet to address the crisis, as well as proposals nurses are seeking to improve patient care, click here to view a previous press release on the matter.

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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