As a June heatwave scorches through Rhode Island, labor tensions threaten to boil over in the state’s health care sector.
Unionized nurses at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital voted Monday night to authorize a potential strike, while medical and support staff at Butler Hospital, off the job since May 15, were formally deemed locked out by the state’s labor department on Tuesday, making them eligible for unemployment benefits.
“We are feeling strong and unstoppable — now management’s only option is to sit down with us and come to a fair and equitable agreement for everyone,” Joe Maini, a mental health worker at Butler and member of the bargaining committee, said in a Tuesday night statement.
The United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) Local 5098 represents roughly 2,500 nurses, case managers and technical and support staff who work at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital, both in Providence. SEIU 1199NE represents the 800-strong Butler workforce which comprises the nursing, clerical, dietary, technical and mental health staff at the Providence psychiatric hospital.
Both unions’ contracts expired on March 31, and both will have the chance to hash things out again with their employers.
On Wednesday, Butler workers and owner Care New England returned to the bargaining table after two days of bargaining last week proved fruitless.
“Our commitment remains strong: to reach a sustainable agreement that values our workforce and supports Butler Hospital’s mission,” said Mary E. Marran, Butler’s president and COO, in a statement Wednesday.
Marran pointed people to the ButlerInfoForYou.org website, which went live in late January ahead of contract talks, for additional information on the day’s negotiations. The site has become a public landing for management’s side of the bargaining saga. A newsfeed on the site was updated with developments from 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, noting that the hospital and union’s bargaining committees had convened.
The negotiations come a day after the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training ruled that unionized workers at Butler can receive unemployment dating back to June 1, when the hospital informed picketing staff that it intended to find their permanent replacements. That maneuver, labor officials determined, amounted to a “constructive lockout” under state law, as the hospital cut off strikers’ wages and benefits while paying temporary laborers.
Strike notice ‘in hand’
Meanwhile, over at Brown University Health — the parent organization of Rhode Island and Hasbro hospitals — spokesperson Kelly Brennan told Rhode Island Current on Wednesday that while a new, formal negotiating session has not yet been scheduled, the two parties are scheduled to meet Monday.
“They’re resuming talks, but it’s not a negotiation session,” Brennan said.
Brennan added that a hospital statement issued Tuesday was still applicable. According to the written statement, the hospital submitted its “last, best and final offer” on June 6, one Brennan described as a “competitive and comprehensive [offer], reflecting months of good-faith bargaining.”
The hospital offered a “market-competitive proposal” with retroactive raises, step and COLA pay adjustments, and benefits totaling $50 million spread across the next three years. The union voted to reject that offer.
UNAP and Brown Health have been negotiating since January, ahead of their seven-year contract’s expiration. All in all, there have been 26 negotiating sessions with no conclusion.
Unions are required to give 10 days notice for a strike.
According to Brennan, if notice is given, “Rhode Island Hospital is fully prepared to activate its comprehensive strike plan” which could cost the hospital “tens of millions of dollars in temporary staffing to ensure continuity of care.”
About a dozen UNAP members gathered Tuesday afternoon to host a press conference near Rhode Island Hospital to challenge their employer’s claims. Most of the workers huddled underneath the shade of a tree to avoid the oppressive afternoon heat. Frank Sims, the UNAP 5098 president and a worker at the hospital, took to the microphone to call the contract “unacceptable.”
“Management’s last offer was insulting and does nothing to improve the recruiting, retention or employee morale,” Sims said. “The members of this union are tired of seeing their coworkers, new and experienced, leave for greener pastures in neighboring states where the pay and benefits are better and healthcare workers are treated with the dignity they deserve.”
Lynn Blais, the president of the entire UNAP organization, said the strike notice was “in hand” and that the union and Monday’s meeting had “probably the largest turnout we’ve ever had for a membership vote.”
What did Blais think about Brennan’s statement that the hospital would spend millions in temporary labor?
“We would tell them to take the money that they want to budget for scabs…and invest it in the workers today,” Blais said.
Health care costs a stumbling block
Prominent in both labor disputes is employer-sponsored health coverage. The UNAP workers say Brown Health’s most recent contract proposal would shift $1 million in health insurance costs onto union members at the cost of more than $1,000 per insured worker.
Butler workers lost their health insurance on May 31 and have cited lackluster health benefits in several iterations of management’s proposals. Care New England appeared ready to address this at Wednesday’s negotiations, and posted to its website that it was unveiling a new health care package that adds a second $0 premium plan for full-time employees and further reduces premiums across tiers. Otherwise, the new offer is the same as the package submitted June 5, which raised minimum wages to at least $18.03 for all employees and created a $100,000 support fund for workers injured by on-the-job violence.
A 2024 brief by the Rhode Island Business Group on Health (RIBGH) attributed employers’ rising health insurance expenditures to growing hospital costs, which now make up nearly half the total spending for commercial insurance plans.
Al Charbonneau, executive director of RIGBH, said in a Wednesday afternoon phone call that he’s no champion of unions. After all, he previously spent time on the other side of the equation as a hospital manager.
“What strikes me is when I look at hospital expenses, I don’t see the money going into labor, frankly,” Charbonneau said. “I’m a management person, but…you know, try to run a hospital without a nurse. Just try to do it.”
Things have changed over the past two decades, Charbonneau said, with one tide in particular carrying the sea change: The rise of hospital systems, which tend to incur substantial development costs, and ultimately raise prices with minimal impact on quality of care. Salaries also seem to lack “strategic thinking,” Charbonneau said, “because it’s all going up about 3% a year over the last 10 to 12 years.”
“Then the hospitals go to the General Assembly and say, ‘We need more nurses. We need to pay our nurses more.’ And the question is, where did the money go?’”
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
