Massachusetts nurses strike over safety goes into 12th week
https://themilitant.com/2021/05/29/massachusetts-nurses-strike-over-safety-goes-into-12th-week/
BY JACOB PERASSO
Vol. 85/No. 22
June 7, 2021
WORCESTER, Mass. — “You can’t spread nurses thin as they have done to
us. The hospital is complaining that we will not back off our demand of
four patients per nurse. But what is so bad about that demand?” Sandra
Thomas, who has been a nurse for 16 years at St. Vincent Hospital here,
told the Militant on the picket line May 12.
“We also want an increase in benefits so nurses can stay working here,”
she said. The hospital owners “see only the bottom line, and want us to
work for them at low cost. They see the patient as a commodity — but
they’re a person!
“We were taken advantage of, they didn’t respect us. That pushed us over
the edge.”
Thomas is one of the over 700 nurses here, organized by the
Massachusetts Nurses Association, who’ve been on strike for 12 weeks
against St. Vincent, which is owned by the Dallas-based Tenet Health chain.
“If we win language on staffing in our contract, there has to be teeth
to it,” said Karen Coughlin, who serves on the association’s board of
directors. “Seven hundred nurses walked out because we can’t care for
our patients. This strike is about safety. We’re on strike because they
did not listen to us.”
“We have wonderful community support. We have had three interfaith
vigils on the picket line. We are part of the community. We live here
and this is our hospital,” Dominique Muldoon, co-chair of the union
negotiating committee, told us May 23.
The most recent negotiations broke down after the hospital refused to
consider a new contract proposal made by the union May 7. Following that
the hospital announced it would hire permanent replacements for strikers
and posted 102 job offers. The nurses responded with this action.
“It’s a publicity stunt,” Muldoon told the Militant, referring to the
job postings. A recent survey showed widespread support for the strike
among nurses statewide.
There has been informational picketing over contract issues by
Massachusetts Nurses Association members at the Cambridge Health
Alliance, Cape Cod Hospital, Falmouth Hospital and other medical
facilities in recent weeks.
Some 120 United Steelworkers members on strike against ATI steel in New
Bedford, part of a companywide strike by 1,300 workers in five states,
“have joined our Saturday standouts at St. Luke’s Hospital there to show
support for our contract fight,” Coughlin said, adding that the nurses
have joined the steelworkers’ picket lines too.
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On the Picket Line
Massachusetts nurses strike over safety goes into 12th week
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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Irvin D. Yalom “Truth," Nietzsche continued, "is arrived at through
disbelief and skepticism, not through a childlike wishing something were
so! Your patient's wish to be in God's hands is not truth. It is simply
a child's wish—and nothing more! It is a wish not to die, a wish for the
eveastingly bloated nipple we have labeled 'God'! Evolutionary theory
scientifically demonstrates God's redundancy—though Darwin himself had
not the courage to follow his evidence to its true conclusion. Surely,
you must realize that we created God, and that all of us together now
have killed him.” ― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept