A federal mediator is being brought in to help with negotiations between Pittsfield, Mass.-based Berkshire Medical Center and the union representing its nurses, according to a MassLive report.
In a letter sent to employees dated March 24, Arthur Milano, vice president of human resources at BMC's parent company, Berkshire Health Systems, said the hospital has held 19 ineffective bargaining sessions with the Massachusetts Nurses Association. He said BMC suggested on March 14 a federal mediator help out, and the MNA agreed to allow Commissioner Cynthia Jeffries from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to sit in on the next bargaining session, scheduled for April 6. "Her role will be to help the parties to reach a fair settlement and move forward," Mr. Milano told employees.
Both sides have proposals they want to see in a final labor deal. Mr. Milano told employees the MNA has proposed an increase in staffing, as well as a 9 percent wage adjustment over three years. That would be added onto annual 2 percent step increases. He said the union has also proposed upping employer contributions for health insurance for part-time employees, among a number of other proposals.
According to the report, the MNA said hundreds of unsafe staffing forms were filed by BMC nurses within a year's time. In response to the MNA's claims regarding unsafe staffing forms, hospital officials stated: "Those forms were filed with the union headquarters in Canton, Mass., and not the hospital leadership." But MNA contends nurses provided those forms to hospital management on multiple occasions.
“Nurses at Berkshire Medical Center are dedicated to the safety and well-being of our patients. Our first priority, as registered nurses, is to ensure our patients receive high-quality care any time they are in the hospital. We work with an excellent team of healthcare professionals to reach that goal. But in recent years, it has become more difficult to consistently provide safe patient care. Our patients are sicker than ever, with more medical complications. Since North Adams Regional Hospital closed in 2014, sending more patients to BMC, we have experienced frequent short-staffing," the BMC RN bargaining committee said in an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review.
They added: “We have frequently made BMC management aware of staffing shortages that jeopardize safe patient care, documenting when the problems occur, how many staff are available at the time, how sick patients are and how many patients are being assigned to nurses. We have spoken to hospital supervisors about these problems during our monthly labor-management meetings and have filed more than 320 unsafe staffing reports since October 2015. Those reports were provided to management at the time of the incidents and also handed across the bargaining table during our ongoing contract negotiations. Our top priority — to secure contract language that includes the necessary levels of nurses and support staff — is based on feedback from front-line nurses who are providing patient care. Our proposals simply aim to hold management accountable to staffing grids that they created in 2015. Evidence-based studies prove that the best patient outcomes happen when nurses have a safe limit on their patient assignment and the ability to provide the care patients need and deserve.”
Mr. Milano said BMC has offered to establish a "Staffing Committee" that would gather twice annually "to review workload, trends, census, absence rates, vacancies and any other pertinent factors" and then make recommendations.
Additionally, BMC has proposed increasing pay by 1 percent the first two years of the agreement and 2 percent in the third year. That would also be added onto the 2 percent annual step increases. BMC also seeks to increase employee contribution for individual health plans from 10 percent to 20 percent "to be consistent with all BMC employees."
Overall, Mr. Milano estimates all of the union's proposals "would cost more than $21 million over three years and would be financially damaging to BMC and to the healthcare system that cares for our community." He added: "We are hopeful that talks with the federal mediator involved will result in meaningful progress toward a final settlement that is fair for our nurses and our hospital."
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