Butler Hospital and union negotiators returned to the bargaining table with federal mediators on Wednesday as the two sides try to end a strike at the psychiatric hospital that has stretched into its second week.
The bargaining session, originally scheduled to conclude at 4 p.m., was still in progress as of Wednesday evening.
“We’re ready to spend the night if we have to,’’ said Dawn Williams, a nurse and member of the bargaining team for the Service Employees International Union 1199 New England.
The union’s leaders had enlisted state legislators, she said, to persuade hospital managers to return to the bargaining table with federal mediators.
Mary E. Marran, Butler’s president and chief operating officer, said in a statement that hospital managers are “returning to the table with a continued commitment to productive dialogue and the goal of reaching a fair and sustainable agreement.” Among the “key priorities” of the discussions, Marran said, are “workplace safety, compensation, and health care coverage.”
The strike comes as Butler, like other hospitals, is facing declining payments from Medicare, which covers people 65 and older, and additional threatened cuts to Medicaid, the government insurance program for people with low wages and disabilities
Butler is run by Care New England, the state’s second-largest hospital system. About 800 of the hospital’s staff are unionized.
Butler’s nurses are among the lowest-paid in the state, Williams said, making it harder to retain and recruit workers and exacerbating the staffing shortage.
“I make $43 an hour,’’ she said. “And I could go to Rhode Island Hospital right now and make $75 (an hour)….That’s just not fair.”
Prior to Wednesday’s meeting with a federal mediator, Marran said, management’s offer to the union included wage increases of at least 18% for “off-scale” employees, meaning those who have maxed-out their contractual step increases due to their experience or tenure, and increases of more than 40% for some of the hospital’s lowest-wage employees.
But the raises are “just not enough” for the union’s single-largest group – mental health workers – whose pay starts at about $18.23 an hour, said Jesse Martin, executive vice president of the SEIU 1199 NE. Butler’s proposed pay increase for those workers, he said, means they wouldn’t earn $22 an hour until 2029.
Butler’s proposed pay increases for its lowest wage workers, dietary staff, whose wages start at $16 an hour, “is just not enough to lift them out of poverty,’’ Martin said. “You can make $20 an hour at KFC.’’
Butler’s proposal to limit its defined benefit pension plan, or traditional pensions, to current employees has also been a sticking point. Under that plan, new hires would instead have a 403(b) retirement plan, with the hospital matching up to 6% of an employee’s contribution.
Most of the unionized staff at Butler earn less than $25 an hour, or $50,000 a year, Martin said, and can’t afford to contribute to a 403(b) plan.
Defined benefit pensions are increasingly rare in private industry. About 15 percent of private industry workers had these traditional retirement plans as of March 2023, according to federal data.
Unlike a traditional pension, the value of a 403(b) account fluctuates with changes in the stock market. A traditional pension puts the company on the hook for the full benefit, regardless of shifts in the market and the employer’s investments.
The striking workers’ last paychecks went out last week. Butler has notified the striking workers that unless they return to work, their company health benefits will run out on May 31.
(Striking workers who lose their health insurance should be able to purchase coverage on the state health insurance network, known as HealthSourceRI.)
The hospital’s head chef, Virgil Soares, said that his insurance pays for the insulin pump implanted into his arm to treat his diabetes. He said it would cost him about $2,200 a month, along with insulin at about $800 per vial, if he loses his insurance. “I’m just not going to be able to sustain what keeps me healthy,’’ Soares said.
Soares, who is a member of the union’s bargaining team, said that dietary staff are among the hospital’s lowest-paid workers, with a starting salary of less than $17 an hour. Even working full-time, he said, one of his cooks can’t make ends meet. A few days before the cook gets his paycheck, Soares said, “he has to ask me for a couple hundred dollars just to feed his kids.”
Soares said he hopes the union and management can reach a deal. “It feels like there’s a lot of animosity coming at us for fighting for what we believe in,’’ he said, “but we got to put that aside, because our patients need us.”
