GREENFIELD — If Baystate Health does not reach an agreement with the Massachusetts Nurses Association by Tuesday, April 14, Baystate Franklin Medical Center nurses will consider going on strike until a new contract can be signed.
Nurses picketed outside the hospital on Tuesday afternoon, advocating for higher wages and protected sick leave while also arguing against the use of “float nurses” who are not local staff and changes to nurse-patient ratios in their next contract. The nurses have been operating under contract extensions since December, when the previous one expired.
Marissa Potter, an obstetrics nurse at Baystate Franklin and co-chair of the MNA Bargaining Committee, said the union has been at the table negotiating with Baystate Health since September. She hopes picketing and community support will help push Baystate Health to reach an agreement.
“We’re bargaining in good faith to attempt to get this thing settled, and we do that to protect our nurses and protect our patients, but it’s time to get this settled,” Potter said. “I think big events like this put a lot of pressure; nobody wants a scene on the sidewalk in front of their place of business, and we just today are announcing a strike authorization vote. That does not mean we are going on strike; it means that the 240 nurses that we represent here are giving us permission to make an informed decision about when that next action needs to occur.”
Nurses and their supporters picket along High Street in Greenfield in front of Baystate Franklin Medical Center on Tuesday. 
Nurses and their supporters picket along High Street in Greenfield in front of Baystate Franklin Medical Center on Tuesday. 
Nurses and their supporters picket along High Street in Greenfield in front of Baystate Franklin Medical Center on Tuesday. 
Nurses and their supporters picket along High Street in Greenfield in front of Baystate Franklin Medical Center on Tuesday.
Potter said one of the union’s priorities is addressing wage disparity between Baystate Franklin nurses and nurses at other hospitals in western Massachusetts.
Joe Markman, associate director of communications for the Massachusetts Nurses Association, said it’s difficult to determine the average pay of Baystate Franklin nurses, due to variation in experience, permanent or per-diem status, and hours worked per week. However, he said nurses in Greenfield make less than their counterparts at other Baystate locations and other area hospitals. According to Markman, Baystate Franklin nurses make 16% less than nurses at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton and 23% less than nurses at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield.
According to job postings on the Baystate Health website, nurses at Baystate Franklin are hired with pay ranging from $37.98 to $62.87 an hour, and nurse manager positions are listed with starting salary ranges of $130,977 to $178,048.
The wages listed for positions at Baystate Franklin are lower than those at other Baystate locations. In Palmer, Ware and Springfield, registered nurse positions are listed with a range from $41.82 to $66.30 an hour.
At Cooley Dickinson, which is affiliated with Mass General Brigham, there are open nurse positions posted with pay ranging from $41.16 to $71.10 per hour, and at Berkshire Medical Center, nurse positions are listed between $43.41 and $65.54 per hour.
“We love our community hospital, and we want to retain and recruit the best nurses possible,” said Suzanne Love, a Baystate Franklin registered nurse and co-chair of the MNA Bargaining Committee. “That’s how you get the best patient care, and we do that by having competitive salaries. We are quite a bit below other area hospitals in this region.”
The union is also looking to preserve nurse-to-patient ratios that were achieved through strikes in 2017. Potter said the ratios vary across departments, but maintaining the current ratios is important so nurses can continue to focus on their patients and go above and beyond the minimum required care. For example, in the med-surg units, which are where patients go after being admitted to the emergency room, the union is fighting for each nurse to have no more than five patients at a time.
“We are working to have them have no more than five, so that they really have enough time in their shift to take care of not just the bare minimum of needs, but the full scope of what it means to care for another human being,” Potter said. “That includes bed baths and ensuring that they can get safely to the bathroom without falling down.”
Markman explained that Baystate Health has proposed using a non-union float pool of nurses to maintain the patient-to-nurse quota, and the union believes it is important to only use local union staff.
Nurses picketing on Tuesday afternoon emphasized that keeping the hospital staffed with local union nurses is important, as they are familiar with the patients, the region and what it means to care for patients in a rural setting.
“We’re here to fight for patient safety and keeping care local in our community,” nurse Laura Heisig said. “I love working here.”
“I’ve been a nurse for about two months now and I’m grateful to be in a hospital where we have the union. As somebody who’s truly just starting my nursing career, I have my trepidations about the things Baystate is offering us, and I’m here to show full support for the union and the things we’re fighting for,” nurse Archer Meier said. “I feel really strongly that we can do an amazing job here as long as we have the support that we need.”
The union is also seeking stronger protections for the use of sick time.
“BFMC management is increasingly disciplining nurses who use their earned sick time, even when they are sick or injured. As a result, nurses have been coming in sick or injured to avoid discipline, which harms nurses and negatively impacts the care environment,” Markman said. “The nurses have proposed eliminating the connection between our [earned sick time] use and Baystate policy, and instead rely on our existing just-cause protections. The nurses also proposed Baystate provide paid leave when nurses are injured on the job or exposed to communicable diseases at work.”
Potter added that the union wants Baystate Health to keep insurance costs stable over the lifespan of the contract.
While picketing on Tuesday afternoon, the nurses union was joined by community members, nurses from other area hospitals, and members of the teachers union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. They also collected signatures for a community petition to support the nurses union’s demands, which, by the time of the picketing, had already garnered 447 signatures.
Meanwhile, Greenfield City Council is considering a resolution to support the Baystate Franklin nurses. The resolution, if passed, states that “the City Council supports the efforts of the nurses of Baystate Franklin Medical Center in securing a fair and equitable union contract that preserves safe staffing levels, supports recruitment and retention, and protects access to high-quality local care; and encourages Baystate Health to negotiate in good faith to reach such an agreement.”
In a statement, Baystate Health spokesperson Heather Duggan said the hospital system and the Massachusetts Nurses Association recently brought the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to the table, and they hope the conflict resolution services agency will help finalize the contract.
“Baystate Franklin Medical Center nurses provide quality and compassionate care to all patients in our community, and we remain committed to negotiating in good faith to reach a fair agreement,” she said in a statement. “We recently began mediation with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and our ongoing bargaining sessions have continued to be productive.”
Potter added that the nurses love working at Baystate Franklin, and they wish to continue providing quality care.
“We think this place is amazing. We’re giving award-winning care and we’re working in a rural setting without the full resources that you would have in a bigger urban hospital,” Potter said. “We can do it, we’re trained to do it and we do it well. We just think that the patients deserve our full attention, and we deserve to be paid equally and fairly with the rest of the region’s nurses.”
