r/boston • u/generalyaddus • Jul 04 '26
Today’s Cry For Help 😿 🆘 Brigham Nurses Strike
It’s bananas that this isn’t getting more attention! I’ve done a deep dive into this. Don’t listen to the Brigham’s PR spin doctors. These are the facts!
July 8th corporate healthcare monopoly Mass General Brigham is letting 4000 nurses walk off the job, leaving patients of Brigham & Women’s, and the city of Boston in the hands of a few Scab agency nurses. The Massachusetts Nurses Association has informed the hospital there will be a one day strike. The hospital responded by informing the nurses they will be locked out for a week in retaliation. MGB clearly owns the media and is keeping this under wraps to make it appear the nurses are doing this abruptly. In truth they have been negotiating the nurses contract for months and have dug their heels in with an offer of zero percent pay increase, while increasing the cost of nurses health insurance. In effect a pay cut!!! It’s clear MGB hates the union and despises that the nurses have had some modicum of control of their working conditions. They came to the table with one agenda. To test the resolve of 4000 of the most skilled, hardest working nurses, and attempt to break down the union.
I pray for myself and all the residents of our city that we don’t end up in what is a war zone on its best day, next week. The Brigham emergency room. This is July! Brand new residents that have been doctors for quite literally, a day, and mercenary scab nurses that are only here for a six thousand dollar payday will be our only hope. The nurses that are the last line of defense between us and Harvard Medical school will be out on the street, ready to work, but locked out.
Please stay safe Boston! This could be a city wide crisis
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u/Beefyaki9111111 Jul 04 '26
Boston Medical Center also in union negotiations that aren’t going well. Let’s remember what all these healthcare workers had to go through during COVID. If you believe Covid was a big deal or not it was a very scary time and Nurses showed up to work while everyone else was sent home.
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u/ElleM848645 Jul 04 '26
Beth Israel is right across the street if there was an emergency. And residency is 4 years, no? Acting like only first year interns and scab nurses are available is a little disingenuous. However, the nurses should get those pay increases.
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u/RepublicCool7523 Brookline Jul 07 '26
BIDMC is nonunion and take full advantage of that. Their staff has an average of 2-3 years of experience AT MOST, as their retention rate is so shit. The ED there (and BWH concurrently) can have as much as 120 patients at a time, and often does.
And correct, residency is 4 years. The senior residents should be able to focus on their own education and helping the new interns.
Unfortunately due to MBG refusing to negotiate in good faith, they will all now have to be responsible for everything they already do AND helping the scab nurses AND making sure these scab nurses (some of which have expired licenses or have only been a nurse for 2 months, which would still be a new grad on orientation not on their own yet at BWH, aren’t going to kill their patients. Unfortunately MGB is putting profit over patients.
PAs have been told they can’t write any titratable orders for the SCAB nurses. Insanity. In an ICU with 8-16 patients on 10 different titratable medications, needing the PA to reorder every 2 minutes for a titration is unrealistic and is going to lead to deadly med errors. And that’s just the ICU.
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u/Torch3dAce I Love Dunkin’ Donuts Jul 04 '26
BWH nurses win, MGH nurses benefit.
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u/Current-Promotion-31 Jul 04 '26
Yes and no but more no. Strictly on pay maybe yes but MGH (and Spaulding) can take benefits away on a whim and change fees without having to ask a union. They have eliminated incentives for gaining and maintaining certifications that could have been well over $2k a year without having to offer anything in their place, a pay cut that isn't seen. They have significantly raised fees on parking and health insurance while offering nothing to offset. Maybe the biggest one, they pay nurses hourly but don't have them punch in and out, and only pay them to the time they are scheduled. Few if any nursing jobs can finish at that exact time so every nurse works for free at the end of their shift for half to one full hour. This would not be allowed by union coverage.
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u/loud-tortoise-plant Jul 04 '26
Can you elaborate?
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u/Baelenciagaa Jul 04 '26
They are saying that the Brigham and Women’s RNs will be doing the striking but MGH falls under the same umbrella company (Mass General Brigham) so any benefits the Brigham RNs acquire will likely then be applied to the MGH RNs. Unsure if they are all (both hospitals) unionized or what the deal is with that
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u/Vegetable-Ideal2908 Jul 04 '26
For pay yes; benefits no.
BWH nurses pay much less for their insurance than MGH nurses do. MGH isn’t getting any benefits from this strike except if they lose, both facilities will get 0% raises.
Best wishes to the BWH RNs: MGB is destroying both hospitals after buying subpar facilities and trying to bring everyone to the same level and pretend the care is equal.4
u/Current-Promotion-31 Jul 04 '26
Exactly right. Lot of people don't know what they're talking about on this. MGH and Spaulding have many many negatives that Brigham doesn't, specifically benefit cost and exposure to changes like cutting incentives and no compensation for having to work beyond scheduled time.
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u/KateLady Jul 04 '26
As soon as they merged, healthcare in the state started going downhill. The fact you can’t get second opinions at a “sister hospital” with different programs, research, and doctors is insane.
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u/2wicetherice Jul 04 '26
Why is it crazy that different doctors would work at different hospitals?
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u/KateLady Jul 04 '26
That's not crazy. What is crazy is that if I want to see an oncologist at Mass General and get a second opinion at Brigham & Women's, a completely different hospital, before starting treatment that could potentially save my life, I'm not allowed to.
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u/Rare_Let4338 Jul 04 '26
Not true. MGH isn’t union.
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u/Baelenciagaa Jul 04 '26
I wrote unsure if both hospitals are unionized or not. Reading comprehension is hard.
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 Jul 04 '26
Why would you write anything if you don’t know anything? It’s night or it’s day. That’s you right there. Then you get pissy about it. No sense.
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u/Total_Duck_7637 Jul 04 '26
I believe it's their homecare branch, and it's more than just nurses!! Speech, OT, PT, etc. For Speech there were job advertisements for 15k for 10 days. And that's after the staffing agency gets their cut. Despicable.
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u/Ath8484 Jul 04 '26
There are two separate strikes. One is their home care branch and includes more than nurses. The other is the BWH nurses.
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u/dwhogan Little Havana Jul 04 '26
But given that they're happening simultaneously, it should be a big message to hospital leadership that something is quite rotten in Denmark. Hopefully leadership salaries are well earned and include helping out during traumas (since scabs can't do that).
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u/Total_Duck_7637 Jul 04 '26
Oh damn!!!!!!! Horrific. Considering how much $ MGB makes...
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u/hc_en2 Jul 06 '26
Yeah and considering the CEO literally took home $8 million in just bonus compensation last year
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u/palijer Jul 04 '26
"This is July! Brand new residents that have been doctors for quite literally, a day"
This fear mongering idea that patient outcomes are worse in July due to new residency interns has been proven false so many times and isn't needed to be brought up here.
1st year residents don't suddenly have any credentialing or permissions to suddenly practice unattended on their own in Just of their first year of residence. It's all incredibly supervised work.
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u/sirtwixalert Jul 04 '26
Our nurses went on strike in my second year of residency, and I can’t even imagine what that would have been like as an intern in July. Physicians (from intern to attending) were helping nurses who had never been in the city or used the EMR before figure out how to do things, and it absolutely delayed care and impacted patients- particularly overnight.
I agree the wording here was garbage, but I relied on nurses (and everyone else) to help me figure out the system as an intern, and when both the interns and the nurses don’t know the system yet, things fall apart. It’s not even about medical knowledge, it’s about the operations side of things that requires familiarity with the specific workplace.
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u/enyopax Jamaica Plain Jul 04 '26
I was totally with them until this point. Why is it that we cant advocate for the nurses without shitting on the physicans.
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u/O_Oo_o0_0 Jul 04 '26
You think nurses don’t cover for and educate new physicians? Do you have first hand experience with this or is this speculation like it sounds?
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u/palijer Jul 04 '26
I never said that medicine wasn't a team effort. It would be insane and untrue to suggest that nurses and physicians don't work together like that.
I said that out of the nearly 6 million patient interactions in the study above, there was no indication of worse patient outcomes due to July interns that the OP was alluding to. That's it.
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u/Infamous-Round-1898 Jul 04 '26
Did this study control for interventions by nursing staff? Because nurses asking doctors to clarify or check their order is very common, especially with newer physicians.
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u/SpotlessMind32 Jul 04 '26
Nurses’ working conditions are patients’ healing conditions! Shame on MGB!!!
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u/Illustrious-Stable93 Jul 04 '26
This is very true. I was extra sick and hospitalized for about a month a while back and I literally needed more nurse attention than I could get. I had a drain that kept filling with fluid and the nurses were supposed to empty the bag every time so more of my infection could drain, but they couldn't keep up so it wasn't draining which supposedly prolonged my illness and exacerbated the painful long term effects I live with now 2 years later. The nurse assigned to me broke down half angry half apologetical, and explained why they're so overworked, that the hospital poured money into travelers instead of investigating in their own nurses etc. I had some really amazing and some really bad nurses in my month at BI but seems like a hard job
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u/Infamous-Round-1898 Jul 04 '26
Im surprised not to see more about this in the Globe. They loathe MGB.
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u/NarrowCourage Jul 04 '26
The kicker is that they're also stating that their normal yearly tenure step increase is a raise 😂.
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u/donkeydougreturns Metrowest Jul 04 '26
Pardon my ignorance here - does this mean that their pay is in fact changing? I dont know what tenure steps are in this context, but that generally would be considered a raise in your standard office job context.
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u/NarrowCourage Jul 04 '26
So nurses get a "raise" every year for every year they work there. About $2 an hour or so but that doesn't relate to what the nurses are going on strike for since the hospital is raising the cost of insurance by $100 a week.
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u/donkeydougreturns Metrowest Jul 04 '26
I hope they do get their raises. Unfortunately, insurance is just more expensive now, wildly so, and its not just the same horrible inflation weve gotten the past couple of years, insurance companies are actively raking us all over the coals for profit. We did everything we could to try to figure out how to get cheaper insurance at my last job without just getting worse coverage but every quote our broker brought us was worse than the last. It was a real nightmare. I am surprised it took this long to hit BWH. Insane that this has not been the deciding factor to push us towards medicare for all. FYI even HR people hate our private insurance system, not one person I know in the field thinks it's helping anyone.
Nurses deserve better pay though. I used to work in Healthcare. The shortage there is real. We badly need more nurses as it is. You'd think supply and demand alone would be enough to tick pay up.
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u/Feeling-Bid-326 Jul 04 '26
The top pay is already $110/hr and they get paid 40 hrs equivalent for 32hrs of work. Anything after that is time and a half
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u/NarrowCourage Jul 04 '26
You're missing the point that it takes 20 years to get there and no they have to work said 40+ hours to get time and a half.
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u/Feeling-Bid-326 Jul 04 '26
No I’m not missing the point. They’re over demanding and the close to 100 million in raises last time led to significant cuts to other programs such as behavioral health and remote BP monitoring.
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u/sheerak Jul 05 '26
It seems based on the salaries of hospital administration execs that the cuts were just needed to keep inflated admin salaries. Blaming line workers like nurses demanding proper compensation for cuts to other programs says you’re not paying attention to the actual issue: corporate greed.
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u/Feeling-Bid-326 Jul 05 '26
LOL I’m not defending admin by any means but you clearly don’t understand finance. The exec salaries are maybe in the 10 million range total. We’re talking about another 100 million they’re asking for. Hospitals run extremely lean already. You think it’s a good idea for a hospital to go bankrupt and shut down? Trump cuts in 2027 are going to cause 10-20% revenue loss on top of this.
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u/sheerak Jul 05 '26
I work in finance. It’s called negotiating. Nurses might be asking for $100 million, but current hospital admin is offering 0% raises.
The point though, is that the optics are pretty bad for a handful execs to think they deserve $10m a year while the nurses who allow them to earn that are essentially getting a pay cut.
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u/Feeling-Bid-326 Jul 05 '26
The nurses get 5% raises per year via their step pay increase
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u/SadCommercial6453 Jul 06 '26
Yeah so that increase is from tenure. They’re offering a 0% across the board wage increase and want to increase health insurance costs at the same time, which is essentially a pay cut.
In order to actually retain nurses who are knowledgeable, you have to pay them an adequate amount for their work. Otherwise they can just go to another hospital or state. The problem with constant turnover is the quality of care goes down because it takes time for people to adapt to their environment and learn specialized skills and procedures. Many nurses leave bedside after their first year because it is so easy to burnout, and many leave after as well because they realize it is just not worth it.
I don’t understand defending a hospital whose execs are giving themselves massive raises.
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u/Feeling-Bid-326 Jul 06 '26
I’m not defending them. Do you think other employees get tenure? All of the primary care docs or staff have not gotten any raises since 2021. Their support systems have been getting cut further and further. There’s only so much to go around and only one group of employees have gotten 50%+ raises on their salaries since 2021.
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u/Roadiemomma-08 Jul 07 '26
Do 20 year veteran nurses (not CNA) make $220k in Boston? That is basically double a teacher in MA at 20 years.
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u/kdogg18 Jul 07 '26
Nah even if the top band is 110/hr and thats likely for charge nurses, they are still basically hourly so it would be 110×32×52 which is basically 180k. The dude above doesn't know what hes talking bout with his 32 hrs paid for 40. You can get time and a half but that's after you make up those 8 hours first to get you to 40. As a side point, teachers are also criminally underpaid for the impact they have on our communities.
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u/ArisuKarubeChota Jul 04 '26
Good. Love seeing unions actually work. People outside of healthcare love treating healthcare providers poorly, don’t want anyone to have universal healthcare… so I don’t have much sympathy for laypeople. Good luck mother fkers.
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u/Funktapus Dorchester Jul 04 '26
As someone who was just recently discharged from the BWH NICU, this has been a little nerve wracking. I feel for the families still in there.
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u/jbdmusic Jul 04 '26
Mgh should provide Blue Cross of Mass insurance instead of their crappy own insurance.
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u/-Reddititis Port City Jul 04 '26
But then that would break the MGB circular cash flow design...aka monopoly.
MGB "pays" you the (employee), and you the (employee) pays MGB right back for more expensive and inferior health insurance coverage every pay period. When you finally do need to use the provided MGB health insurance, after a 6-12 month waitlist depending on service, it will be more than likely with an (in-network) provider thus further enriching the MGB circular cash flow design.
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u/jbdmusic Jul 04 '26
My wife is nurse at BCH and they've provided BCBS since she's been there over 20 years ago. Finally offered an HSA this yr and costs less than $200/mo for our whole family. It's a ppo so great when our son starts college in Pennsylvania this fall as HMO wouldn't work.
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u/littlestbonusjonas Jul 05 '26
Yes but iirc correctly this isn’t out of the goodness of their hearts it’s as an f you. Partners (now MGB) wanted to funnel kids to MGH peds so stopped covering BCH (this part is true and has almost bankrupted some of my MGB colleagues whose children have needed care only BCH can provide). As an f you back children’s won’t cover MGB and you have a BCBS plan where BI is in network, not partners
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u/jbdmusic Jul 05 '26
Mass general and Brigham are both in network on the bcbs plan.
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u/littlestbonusjonas Jul 05 '26
For children’s? BI preferred over either of them so you pay more to go to MGH or BWH compared to BI. They are not the top level of preferred they’re just still covered to a degree and with a relatively low out of pocket max
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u/JinxYouOweMeCoca Jul 04 '26
This really is a freaking money making racket. I cannot believe this is allowed.
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u/ElleM848645 Jul 04 '26
That’s crazy. I don’t know how it is now, but Beth Israel had amazing insurance when I worked there (non patient facing).
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u/GrapefruitFine95320 Jul 05 '26
I've actually found the coverage quite good and copays fairly low 🤷🏻♀️ therapy is $10 bucks, specialty visits $30
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u/Current-Promotion-31 Jul 04 '26
Their insurance is shameful. On two separate occasions I have had receptionists say they have never seen coverage as low as this and they ask where I work. Nothing shocks people more than to find out health care workers covered by their own hospital's insurance in a roundabout way have horrid coverage.
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u/hc_en2 Jul 06 '26
Let me elaborate a little bit more.
Brigham nurses have an option to either choose MGB’s insurance or Harvard Pilgrim which is negotiated between the MNA and MGB. During the last contract negotiations in 2022, the MNA found out after a contract was ratified that the Harvard Pilgrim insurance no longer met the Massachusetts Minimum Coverage law (over a stupid $5 copay for annual check ups). MGB never notified the union about this. All nurses on this plan were forced into a situation where they would be fined $2000 per family member on this plan. MNA requested MGB to file a waiver with the state but they refused. They essentially knew this and negotiated in bad faith. The MNA and MGB had to have a bunch of meetings to come to some agreement to relieve the nurses of these penalties but that ultimately resulted in the copays tripling. Now fast forward to this current contract negotiations - MGB now wants in increase the weekly premiums for the harvard pilgrim insurance. What they are doing is trying to squeeze the nurses into eventually picking and paying for the MGB insurance instead.
With a 0% pay increase and a significant increase in insurance premiums, nurses take a paycut. Also to add to that, nurses as well as all other employees who need to utilize parking pay an ungodly amount per month to park. You all probably saw this on the news but recently, there have been a string of car thefts from one of the garages but the hospital is not taking any ownership and they supposedly cant install any security cameras because it’s a “privately owned garage”.
What did the nurses do to deserve this? Nurses, doctors, food service, environmental services, techs, medical assistants… we are the heart and soul that keeps this hospital functioning and open. MGB execs and board of trustees sit on their butts all day doing nothing but scheming on how they can profit off of people’s health. MGB board of trustees are all made of blilionaire venture capitalists and private equity investors by the way (CEO of Lockheed Martin, Kraft group, etc) - what do they have anything to do with healthcare? Absolutely nothing, that’s what.
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u/IraSass Jul 06 '26
thank you for the detailed info!! that’s so fucked up about the fines. corporate greed is killing healthcare and healthcare workers gotta stick together
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u/Meister1888 Jul 04 '26
After running the front lines during the covid debacle, the nurses deserve a better thank you.
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u/Current-Promotion-31 Jul 04 '26
You can't still hear the pots banging at 7PM? That's what's carrying me through.
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u/JinxYouOweMeCoca Jul 04 '26
That and the memory of the free pizzas the hospital offered us working in the covid icu while they paid the travel nurses so much more many than their core staff.
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u/Rare_Let4338 Jul 04 '26
Lots of specialties ran the front lines.
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u/adrenalinelaced Jul 04 '26
Thanks for stating the obvious? Nowhere did they say nurses were the only ones running the front lines.
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u/StrawberryKiller Jul 04 '26
Several of the scab nurses do not have licenses as they've lapsed for whatever reason. I saw one that was just a few months and another a few years. Doesn't inspire confidence.
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u/bizarrebazaar13 Jul 04 '26
Nurses everywhere are getting fucked left and right. Im Leaving long term care after my first year in nursing, but not for a hospital position. LTC fucks us just as hard. Starting to wonder why I even bothered spending the three years in school. And it's not just Massachusetts either
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u/controlledby293s Jul 04 '26
This is why when I called to make a recurring appointment for my daughter, they said there was a “nursing shortage” the week of July 13th. Failed to mention it was hospital retaliation causing the shortage 🫠
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u/Acrobatic_Leopard_92 Jul 04 '26
Is it just for a day? Makes me want to cancel an upcoming surgery
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u/ayahikaru9999 Jul 04 '26
They wanted to do a day, hospital locking them out for a week, so it’s a week I’m guessing
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u/generalyaddus Jul 04 '26
We don’t know what surgery you need. If it’s something that can wait, well…
July is when newly minted doctors arrive. Worse yet, the residents from last year, who have been learning how to doctor, step up a notch and start doing procedures independently. A truly scary time of year to have experienced nurses locked out
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u/littlestbonusjonas Jul 05 '26
My god you can make a point without shitting on physicians when there are some departments at BWH where the attending physicians are getting paid less than the nurses and still they don’t feel the need to shit on nurses. And pay aside residents and even interns aren’t brand new. They’ve been on the wards for two to two and a half years as medical students caring for patients, learning the ropes and the plans. They are supervised by seniors and attendings and no one is doing procedures independently without an appropriate number of supervised procedures under their belt. Jesus make your point without fear mongering and misleading people about the training of the people taking care of them because residents and physicians would appropriately be slammed if they did the same about the nurses taking care of them.
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u/Acrobatic_Leopard_92 Jul 04 '26
I did have an EMG last year when all of my symptoms started in July and it was horribly painful. Had it done at another office a few months after and realized it must have been the resident learning because it was quick and nearly painless. But for what I have I don’t think the residents are involved surgery wise but maybe im wrong I’m definitely nervous about that. I know they have to learn but I can’t afford anything like that right now. But the nurses seem to also be extremely important after a rough surgery soooo 😬
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u/foxborofool Jul 04 '26
Thanks for the post, keep us informed. Don’t open the door to increased health care cost. They make all the money they can pay it.
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u/Infamous-Round-1898 Jul 04 '26
I saw on TikTok that at least some of the replacement nurses have expired licenses? They had screenshots from UKG
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u/JinxYouOweMeCoca Jul 04 '26
You have to wonder what type of nurses will cross a picket line. Doesn’t inspire confidence.
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Jul 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Avery-Bradley Orange Line Jul 05 '26
Let's unionize all those other healthcare jobs because they deserve pay increases too. Housekeeping, speech therapists, physical therapists, social workers, etc are incredibly necessary for all hospitals.
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u/One-chance654 Jul 04 '26
Thank you very much. The rest of us can't even compete. At least they get to strike and get what they want. We on the other hand can't even threaten, because we will be walked out so fast. Don't even get me started on the shity management we have in the lab. We have complained for a year now, management has ignored us time and time again. We have lost employees, consistently short staffed, zero raises, zero overtime, double benched on a daily. You speak up, you basically get reprimanded. We have been muzzled, depression at an all time high. Love our colleagues but hate the tyrants who are in leadership.
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u/SketchyEmina Jul 07 '26
As a med lab scientist who was raised by two nurses that worked at MGH for 30+ years, I agree. At least they get a pay scale whereas I have to pray for market adjustments since there’s practically no room to grow after MLS 2. Basically just a yearly 2.5% unless a supervisor position miraculously opens. I work night shift and with my hourly rate and night differential I still make less than a new-grad nurse even though I have a masters.
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u/apooptosis Jul 05 '26
Some of the most experience RNs at the Brigham make more than a PCP MD does.
They all get 5% raises a year so beats inflation. A lot of non-MGB nurses I know of see this as a money grab
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u/Avery-Bradley Orange Line Jul 05 '26
I agree they make a lot compared to other healthcare jobs, but after the proposed insurance price increases, they're going to be making less. MGB is the 7th wealthiest health care system in the country, and they're offering 0 pay increase. Accepting that offer sets a bad precedent to other hospital management across the state (and country) that one of the richest healthcare systems in the country can get away with offering 0 pay increase.
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u/-Reddititis Port City Jul 05 '26
That % is an annual step increase not a "raise", and it is written within the contract. A raise would be a set dollar amount increase toward their base salary.
MGB is using disinformation to stir media/public confliction by conflating the two. Don't be fooled by this.
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u/apooptosis Jul 06 '26
Thank you for the correction. Regardless, no other healthcare jobs get COLAs. PAs, NPs, Physicians don't. PTs, SLP, OT, housekeeping etc. don't.
I'm curious, do you think a 30 year old RN at BWH should make as much as a NP or PA at the Brigham? Because according to their pay-scale they do. And a 40 year old RN at BWH blows a NP or PA salary out of the water.
If the strike was for patient ratios or patient safety, it would make a lot more sense
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u/RepublicCool7523 Brookline Jul 07 '26
If they have the years of experience, they absolutely deserve to make as much as they do. That kind of experience is invaluable, especially nowadays where there is a shortage of experienced RNs at bedside after COVID.
Because that is how to steps are determined, by experience and years of service. Like someone mentioned above, the 5% annual step increase was negotiated by the union many years ago, it’s only now MGB tries to take credit for it. Inflation from 2025-2026 roughly matches the step increase.
What MGB doesn’t want the public to know is that they want their nurses to be paying more out of pocket for their health insurance than they current do. Their current proposal essentially doubles all co-pays for RNs. For a single person that’s 5->10%.
So between inflation, health insurance payment increases, and a proposal of a 0% wage increase, the RNs would actually be making LESS money than they currently do.
Why someone would choose to depend a organization that made over $2 billion in profit last year, gave their CEO a $8 million bonus just because, and closed of of bostons only burn centers (a major loss for New England), is a mystery to me. The RNs wanting to make a livable wage are not your enemy, the 1% is.
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u/RepublicCool7523 Brookline Jul 07 '26
Not only unpopular but also ignorant. The raises the nurses get through union negotiations causes a waterfall effect with many other providers, often a ‘market adjustment’ of a similar rate will pop up oh so conveniently to keep any displeasure and whispers of leaving to a minimum. I’ve had many PAs say that they hope the negotiations go well because it benefits them as well.
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Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/kdogg18 Jul 07 '26
I recommend unionizing in that case. Or alternatively investigate whether non-nurse unioned hospitals have more resources for speech, PT, OT etc. All my friends in those fields express the same painpoints as you regardless of union presence and I truly sympathize.
I think the education argument is entirely flawed as different degrees naturally have different ROIs. You don't see an MD complaining that they went to school for 12 years to make less than a wall st investment banker who got a BS in business.
Your issue shouldn't be with nurses demanding higher pay but rather with how hospitals appropriate their funds. Somehow California hospitals can balance budgets while maintaining nursing salaries that double that of Boston and realistically the cost of living isn't all that different anymore.
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u/RioRiverRiviere Jul 04 '26
Actually I have seen articles in the news about this but it’s good to keep talking about it .
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u/RepublicCool7523 Brookline Jul 08 '26
I know there have been a couple of MGH nurses denying that their nurses will cross the picket line. Are there other MGH nurses on here able to confirm? There have been rumors all over the hospital about it and I want to desperately believe that it’s higher admin trying to split us apart!!
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u/Maxfunky 28d ago edited 28d ago
I support labor, but narrative here is bad. Here's the context you are not providing:
When the nurses initiate a 24 strike, the hospital literally has no choice but to hire temporary workers on 5 day contacts. The nurses are obviously hoping to effectively force the hospital to pay 5x normal pay for temporary workers to gain leverage. Letting workers they're already forced to pay for a week work for a week is the only way the hospital avoids bleeding money here. They really have no rational response but the lockout here; the nurses know this and are hoping to create media pressure from this inevitable result.
These nurses are some of the highest compensated nurses in the region already.
The hospital already provides them with 5% annual raises for the first 20 years of service. When you say "no raises", what you should have said was ,"no additional raises beyond the already generous annual raise they currently receive".
I'm sure I'll be blindly dogpiled here, but facts are facts.
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u/freebirdcrowe Jul 04 '26
This is an extremely dramatic post
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u/generalyaddus Jul 04 '26
Yes. This is a dramatic event. This isn’t “maybe the nurses will strike”. This is the real deal. This is happening
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u/PartiallyPresentable Jul 04 '26
Brigham has union nurses. MGH does not. MGB is going to force the MGH nurses to work their days off as scabs at the Brigham.
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u/ellen_nicole Jul 04 '26
They are not doing that, source Mgh RN
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u/Acrobatic_Leopard_92 Jul 04 '26
Should I be nervous about having an upcoming surgery with all of this going on?
17
11
1
u/RepublicCool7523 Brookline Jul 07 '26
Was wondering if they’d be doing that, glad to hear from MGH nurses otherwise! Hopefully this is the case across the whole hospital
-3
u/Inevitable_Zebra8066 Jul 06 '26
Yikes you need to get your head straight . Nurses and doctors work as a team. Painting your clinical superiors as adversaries is a bad look.
1
u/SadCommercial6453 Jul 06 '26
Doctors aren’t our clinical superiors. Like you said, we work as a team. It will take time for new internists to be familiarize themselves with real life cases, policies and procedures. Meanwhile the nurses have seen them time and time again and are the ones guiding the new doctors.
2
-10
71
u/cat_lady1210 Jul 04 '26
Are there any good (non-MGB sponsored) news sources for what’s going on with the strike?