Union Nurses File Unfair Labor Complaint Against Hospital

Holy Family Hospital at Merrimack Valley, Haverhill.

As union contract negotiations are scheduled to continue today for 145 registered nurses at Holy Family Hospital at Merrimack Valley, Haverhill, a new “unfair labor practice” complaint was filed on behalf of union nurses at Holy Family’s Methuen campus, days before their contract talks begin.

Registered nurses at Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, represented by Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), filed an unfair labor practice charge this week, against parent Steward Health Care, with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It is the union’s third NLRB complaint over “the hospital’s continued failure and refusal to provide legally required information that the nurses need to begin bargaining a new union contract,” according to a statement Wednesday by MNA. Nurses and management in Methuen are scheduled to begin talks Tuesday, Sept. 20.

“The charge filed by the nurses at the Holy Family Hospital in Methuen follows two earlier charges filed by the nurses at Holy Family Hospital in Haverhill, who are currently locked in a struggle to negotiate their union contract, an effort that has drawn widespread support from the community including the Haverhill City Council, a number of Essex County legislators, and a growing list of community leaders and residents who have sent letters and signed petitions in support of the nurses,” the statement reads.

MNA alleges it has yet to receive all of the necessary information it requested for nurses in Methuen last May, which prompted the filing of the latest charge.

“The latest charge stems from an initial information request sent to Steward on May 19.  The request, which is a standard request unions make to all employers prior to the opening of negotiations, calls for the employer to provide a variety of legally required information, including a listing of all nurses with wage, hour and seniority data, health insurance data and information on the use of temporary/casual nurses,” a spokesperson said.  “These requests are made by the MNA for all its negotiations with the dozens of hospitals and other health care employers where it represents nurses for collective bargaining.  It is rare for any employer not to comply with these requests, yet for Steward, it has become a standard practice.”

As WHAV reported last month, MNA representatives and a local community delegation Aug. 19 personally delivered a letter to Holy Family President Joseph Roach at the Haverhill campus. It called upon the hospital and parent Steward Health Care to “support the community by respecting the sacrifices and loyalty of the nurses.” The letter to Roach indicated 70 registered nurses, or 41 percent of that staff, left over the past two years “to find employment at other facilities, where they find greater support and respect.” Delegates attending included Merrimack Valley Central Labor Council and United Teachers of Lowell President Paul Georges and Rev. Ralph Galen from United Universalist Church of Wakefield.

Since then, Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) local co-chairs Julia O’Brien, 66 Webster St., and Jane Emery, 3 Pine Ridge Road, told Haverhill city councilors the night of their previous Aug. 23 negotiation session only “a couple of questions” from Steward representatives to a counter-proposal from the nurses took up that meeting. O’Brien told councilors the union began to receive that week, in response to unfair labor practice complaints, information requested by the union six months earler for the bargaining process.

“We have faced an uphill battle from the start because the culture of the hospital is not one that values nurses. My colleagues and I experience daily disrespect on the job and have been told that we are replaceable,” O’Brien said.

Emery said the hospital administration has also been “unwilling” to offer “any type of a real retirement plan.”

“They did offer a little carrot of a pension plan that would take effect on, literally, the last 24 hours, for the contract that we are now working on. That was their idea of what we deserved,” Emery said. “We are the only hospital represented by the (MNA) that does not receive either a match or a pension. The only nurses at our hospital that have a real retirement plan are the few nurses who remain (from) when the city actually owned the hospital.”