Week of:
May 6 - Will the MNA improve my nursing practice?
Answer: Not very likely based on how the MNA has done elsewhere. The MNA is a labor union, not a professional nurse’s organization. All it could do for your practice if it somehow came to represent the nurses at SSH would be to negotiate with the Hospital about practice-related issues. However, the MNA's track record shows it has been unsuccessful in negotiating improvements in nursing practices. Just read the public statements nurses it represents have made criticizing the care they give at hospitals like Quincy Medical Center, Holy Family Hospital, UMass Memorial Medical Center, and Merrimack Valley Hospital. And, do not forget that the MNA is opposed to a very important practice-related program – the Magnet program – that you participate in. The MNA has such disdain for that program it has insulted it and the care you give saying, “The fact that South Shore Hospital was Magnet designated last year is sufficient to illustrate the meaninglessness of the label.”
The evidence is clear: the MNA likes to set up picket lines and rallies with nurses wielding noisemakers and shouting through bullhorns about unsafe staffing and poor care by nurses, but it has done nothing to improve the practice of the nurses it represents.
April 29 - Is it true the MNA will definitely bring back the super diffs?
Answer: No. If the MNA somehow represents the SSH nurses, it can do no more than ask the Hospital to restore the super diffs. No MNA promise comes true unless the Hospital agrees. And, we are unaware that the MNA has negotiated super diffs at other hospitals where it represents nurses.
When the MNA finds it is unable to keep its promises, it often takes drastic action such as asking the nurses it represents to authorize a strike. The MNA takes this negative action under the guise of trying to pressure a hospital into changing its positions in negotiations. Often, this means trying to coerce a hospital into making a decision that is not in the best interests of the hospital, its patients and the nurses. Recent examples of this type of behavior include the strike authorization vote at Quincy Medical Center. There, the hospital announced the closure an inpatient unit on the heels of the MNA and its supporters distributing leaflets to the community saying the hospital does not provide safe care. Another example is the April 11 strike authorization vote scheduled for UMass Medical Center nurses. The MNA has been negotiating with the medical center for 14 months and has not been able to persuade the hospital to agree to its staffing proposals.
April 22 - Would I get my job back after a strike?
Answer: Not necessarily. SSH could permanently replace nurses who went out on an economic strike. (An economic striker is one who is striking other than in protest of an alleged unfair labor practice. Economic strikers are typically on strike for higher wages or better benefits.) This means that SSH is not required to get rid of the replacements to make room for returning strikers once the strike ends. Strikers who want to come back may have to join a preferential reinstatement list and wait for jobs to open up. That may or may not ever happen.
Even if you were not permanently replaced and did return to work at SSH after a strike, ask yourself what it would be like to work here after a strike. Many of you know nurses who lived through the strike at Brockton Hospital and may even had heard stories about a lack of teamwork and an "us versus them" environment between nurses who went out on strike and those who continued to care for patients. Ask yourself if you would be willing to risk the sense of community we have here today by backing an agenda set by the increasingly strike-happy MNA.
April 15 - What happens to my pay and benefits if there is a strike?
Answer: If you strike, SSH would not pay you during the strike and you would be responsible for the full cost of your insurance coverage. Insurance coverage is very expensive, so it would be difficult to pay for that coverage when you are no longer being paid because you are out on strike.
April 8 - Could there be a nurses’ strike at South Shore Hospital?
Answer: Without a union, it is almost a certainty that there will not be a nurses’ strike at SSH. However, with a union, the threat of a strike will always be with us. Based on the MNA’s record and its apparent fondness for strikes and picketing, if the MNA were to represent nurses at SSH, the possibility that you might have to go on strike, picket, demonstrate, and yell negative statements about SSH in public would always exist.
We’re not saying that, if the MNA somehow gets in at SSH, you would have to go out on strike. In fact, we hope that would never happen. Nevertheless, there are numerous examples of the MNA’s willingness to strike at local hospitals, including at Quincy Medical Center, where the nurses who are represented by the MNA are scheduled to go on strike on April 11 and at UMass Memorial Medical Center, where the MNA is holding a strike authorization vote for the nurses it represents there.
April 1 - Could there be picketing or a strike at South Shore Hospital?
Answer: Yes. Since January 1, 2011, the MNA has picketed at no fewer than 10 hospitals, and the union has picketed at some of those hospitals on multiple occasions. Just this week, nurses represented by the MNA voted for a one-day strike at Quincy Medical Center. The one-day strike will be accompanied by picketing at QMC.
What is the “story behind the story” of MNA picketing? First, every MNA member is expected to participate in the picketing at the hospital where he or she works. Second, as we have explained, most MNA contracts contain a clause that requires nurses to become members or agency fee payers and pay 95% of expensive MNA dues without the right to vote on whether to engage in picketing. Third, picketing by nurses represented by the MNA often involves a nurse shouting anti-hospital slogans through a bullhorn while their colleagues, many with their children in tow, march around the hospital joining in the chant.
March 25 - Will the MNA give me job security?
Answer: No. During the last few years nurses represented by the MNA have been laid off at several hospitals including Jordan Hospital, Boston Medical Center, and UMass Memorial Medical Center. We are not aware of a single MNA contract that prohibits layoffs. So what does the MNA really mean when it says it can get you job security? It means it may be able to negotiate contract language that states that if there is a layoff, senior nurses can bump less senior nurses out of their positions.
We also are not aware of any MNA contract that prohibits a hospital from terminating a nurse's employment for reasons other than a layoff. Sure, the MNA has contracts that say that a hospital can only terminate a nurse for just cause. But what is that really worth to you? We terminate very few nurses here because we work hard to hire the best nurses in the area. When we do terminate a nurse, we do so because he or she is behaving or performing in a manner that does not meet the expectations that we as a Magnet hospital expect of each other and we do so after working with the nurse to achieve success. A just cause provision in a contract would not prevent us from terminating a nurse under those circumstances. More importantly, as a nurse, do you want to be represented by an organization that would try to prevent us from removing a nurse who does not meet the high standards we have established through joint governance?
March 18 - Will I have everything I have today and then some with an MNA contract?
Answer: Probably not. MNA contracts are the result of collective bargaining -- there is no such thing as a “standard” MNA contract. Each and every line of the contract is subject to negotiation.
When the MNA bargains a contract with a hospital, it is a process of give and take. That means you could end up with the same as you have today, less than you have today, or more than you have today as a result of negotiations. There are no guarantees in collective bargaining, so no one knows with certainty whether you will have everything or even anything you have today in an MNA contract.
We do know that, in negotiations, the MNA often will trade something the nurses currently have in exchange for something the MNA wants for itself in the contract. We also know that a union security provision—whether it is a union shop clause or an agency fee clause—is one of the things the MNA absolutely wants in its contracts because it puts your money in the MNA’s pockets. We have not seen an MNA contract that does not include one. These clauses require every nurse covered by the contract to either join the MNA and pay expensive union dues or pay an agency fee to the MNA (the fee is currently 95% of the MNA's standard expensive dues). What would you be willing to give up that you currently receive so the MNA can get the agency fee clause it wants in the contract?
March 11 - Will I have any say in contract negotiations?
Answer: Very little. There are approximately 900 nurses working at South Shore Hospital and its home care division. Obviously, not all of the nurses can sit at the bargaining table to negotiate with the hospital's representatives. The MNA typically creates a team of 10-15 nurses to sit on the negotiating committee. It will be that small group that is reviewing the hospital's proposals and making proposals on your behalf. These proposals often get drafted during the negotiating session, so there is little opportunity for the nurses on the bargaining committee to go back and ask each of you what you think about a proposal. Instead, the nurses on the bargaining committee usually look to the MNA representative for guidance on which proposals to make, which to reject, and which to accept. Are you comfortable letting an employee of the MNA and nurses you may not know make decisions for you about your scheduling, staffing, pay, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment?
March 4 - Can the MNA guarantee me a better work schedule?
Answer: No. Today, your managers have the flexibility to work with you to adjust your schedule to accommodate changes in your life. If you were represented by the MNA, the union and SSH would negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that would dictate the process for setting the work schedules for all of the nurses. The processes in a different MNA contracts are rigid and does not provide accommodations for even the most legitimate personal needs of a nurse or the nurse’s family. MNA-negotiated contract leave nurse managers with little of the discretion they have today to respond to the legitimate scheduling needs of nurses, and that’s just how the MNA wants it. The MNA wants a rigid set of one-size-fits-all rules that proscribe the terms and conditions of employment for everybody regardless of his or her personal circumstances. But we doubt that you do.
February 25 - Is it true that the MNA can stop all floating?
Answer: No. First, the MNA has negotiated contracts that expressly permit hospitals to float nurses. Second, even if the MNA to represents you, it cannot force South Shore Hospital to agree to any proposal—including one regarding floating—that SSH believes is not in the best interests of the hospital or its patients. The law requires employers and unions to bargain in good faith, but it does not require them to reach an agreement. If you let the MNA speak for you, we would bargain in good faith with the union, but we would not agree to any MNA proposal that could frustrate SSH’s ability to meet the needs of our patients. While we work hard to limit floating today, there are times when it is necessary to float nurses. The MNA cannot change the fact that sometimes nurses need to float to meet patient care needs.
February 18 - Can the Massachusetts Nurses Association guarantee it will bring back the vacation system?
Answer: No. There are no guarantees in collective bargaining. The MNA may say they will bring back the old vacation system, but the old system will return only if South Shore Hospital agrees to bring it back. The law does not require either party to agree to any proposal made by the other party or even to reach an agreement at all. Rather, the law requires the parties to bargain in good faith, and we would certainly do this if the nurses at SSH chose to be represented by the MNA.
But the reasons why we changed the old vacation system would remain regardless of MNA representation. We put a lot of thought into the new PTO system and decided to convert to it because we believed it was the right thing to do. The reasons for this change will remain even if the MNA asked us to go back to the old vacation system.
Of course, there is no assurance the MNA would even propose to return to the old system? After all, the MNA has agreed to PTO at several hospitals, including Good Samaritan Medical Center, Jordan Hospital, Tobey Hospital, and Beverly Hospital.
The bottom line is this: beware of MNA promises. As it has done so many times, the MNA may tell you what you want to hear, but they so often fail to deliver.
February 11 - How long does it take to negotiate a contract?
Answer: The short answer: it can take a long time, particularly for a first contract. Every word of the contract needs to be negotiated. There is no “standard union contract” that can simply be downloaded from the Internet or taken off a shelf at the union office. Every hospital—and the nurses who work there—have unique requirements and needs, and it takes a great deal of time to discuss them and write a contract which deals with them.
Add to this the fact that the law on collective bargaining requires the parties to bargain in good faith, but it does not require either party to agree to the other’s proposals or to make concessions. In fact, the law does not require that the parties reach an agreement at all! If the MNA represented the nurses here, we would bargain in good faith, of course.
Here are some examples of recent contract negotiations between the Massachusetts Nurses Association and hospitals where the MNA represents nurses:
Baystate Franklin Medical Center: More than 30 negotiating sessions in over 12 months and still no new contract
Holy Family Hospital: Bargaining for a first contract since December 2011 and still no contract
MetroWest Medical Center: More than 15 negotiation sessions since November 2011 and still no new contract
UMass Memorial Medical Center: Bargaining since February 2012 (University campus) and November 2011 (Memorial campus) and still no new contract
When you think about all of the competing interests that need to be taken into account in a collective bargaining agreement, that every collective bargaining agreement is unique and every word must be carefully considered, the complicated environment in which we work, and the law on collective bargaining, you can readily see why it could take months or even years of good faith negotiations to reach a first contract for nurses in a hospital.
February 4 - Will I get a better vacation schedule with the Massachusetts Nurses Association?
Answer: Maybe, maybe not. The parties would negotiate about time off, but it would only be one of many, many subjects of bargaining. There are no guarantees with collective bargaining; no one knows what the result of negotiations may be. Sometimes in collective bargaining, a union will settle for a less favorable vacation benefit in exchange for getting something else like a union security clause that requires all nurses to pay dues or an agency fee as a condition of working at the hospital.
The MNA has negotiated different time off provisions, including both paid time off systems like the one that went into effect here on January 1 and the outdated vacation and sick leave system that we replaced. While these provisions differ from hospital to hospital, one concept stands out – seniority rules.
MNA contracts generally have a rigid procedure for selecting vacation dates that is driven by seniority. The more senior you are the more likely it is you will get the vacation schedule you want.
You may be thinking that is a fair way to address vacation scheduling because everyone gets the chance to be “senior” if they stay at South Shore Hospital long enough. But, what happens if you are a nurse on a unit where everyone stays for a long time? In other words, what if you are in the bottom third in seniority on your unit and most of your colleagues have just a couple of more years of service at SSH than you do? If you all keep working here, you would always be one of the last people to pick a vacation week on your unit under an MNA-style vacation provision.
How would you feel if after 20 years of working at SSH you still could not get a week of vacation in July or take time off during a school vacation week because your more senior colleagues chose those weeks ahead of you every year? We think you are better off now as your manager has the flexibility to consider seniority, but also make allowances for fairness so that the same people do not have a monopoly on all the most sought-after weeks off. MNA-style seniority driven vacation provisions do not allow management to exercise this discretion in a fair way.
January 28 - Will I have to join the MNA if they represent the SSH nurses?
Answer: Regardless of whether you join the MNA, you will be paying the MNA. Here’s why. In every MNA contract we have seen, the MNA has negotiated what is called a “union security clause.” The way a union security clause works, an employee must either join the union and pay union dues or become an “agency fee payer,” and pay that portion of the union dues that covers the union’s costs for collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.
The MNA determines the amount of the agency fee. Currently, the MNA sets the agency fee at 95% of its regular dues rate. The MNA dues range from $780/year to $958/year. So, even if you elect to pay an agency fee, you would still be paying the MNA a lot of money ($741-$910 each year). As an agency fee payer, you give up important rights to have a say in what happens to you at work. For example, as an agency fee payer, you will not have a right to vote on
- Whether or not to ratify a contract
- Whether or not to authorize a strike
- Who to elect as your representative in contract negotiations and other union activities
Agency fee payers pay a lot of money to the MNA to represent them, but they have no voice in what the MNA does with that money or in the positions the MNA takes on their behalf.
When a contract contains a union security clause, payment of union dues or an agency fee is a term and condition of employment. In other words, if the MNA negotiates a union security clause, as it has done at Brockton Hospital, Jordan Hospital, Good Samaritan Medical Center, and Carney Hospital, to name just a few, the MNA can ask SSH to fire any nurse who has not paid dues or an agency fee, or has fallen behind on those payments. In this example, SSH would be contractually obligated to fire the nurse even if she was a great nurse who was not paying her dues because, for example, her husband had been laid off. |
