MASS LIVE
By Gintautas Dumcias
Mayor Marty Walsh played a key role in Brigham and Women Hospital avoiding a major nurses strike, hospital officials said Monday.
A tentative deal was reached early Sunday morning between the hospital and the 3,300 nurses, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association. The nurses had voted to authorize a one-day strike, initially set for Monday.
On Monday afternoon, as nurses and doctors picnicked in the park on the hospital campus, hospital officials and the mayor took a victory lap in front of assembled reporters.
Standing with Betsy Nabel, president of Brigham and Women’s Health Care, and other hospital officials, Walsh noted that they were celebrating with boxed lunches and ice cream treats “rather than worrying about picket lines and hard feelings.”
“Both sides were able to sit down at the table, put aside their feelings and come up with a contract that’s good for both sides,” said Walsh, a former labor leader who was treated for cancer as a child at the Brigham.
According to a release from the nurses’ union, the deal “protects safe patient care, enhances hospital security, successfully fights off attempts to implement non-union benefits for new nurses and includes a fair wage increase.”
Jack Connors, a top donor to the hospital and former chair of the board at Partners Health Care, a network that includes the Brigham, called Walsh “the glue” in helping the deal come together.
Continue reading the story on the Mass Live website.
Hear Mayor Walsh talk about the hospital and the importance of its staff: