FRAMINGHAM — Citing concerns over working conditions, nurses at MetroWest Medical Center will soon hold a vote to join the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) union.
Nurses at the Framingham Union Hosptial campus of MetroWest Medical Center filed notice with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday to trigger an election on whether to join the MNA.
According to MNA’s communications director, Joe Markman, about 70% of local nurses signed union cards. Federal law states that only 30% need to sign cards to trigger a vote to determine whether they will be represented by a union.
The Framingham nurse organization committee wrote a letter addressed to MetroWest Medical Center CEO John Whitlock Jr. and Chief Nursing Officer Naomi Seymour. In it, they ask for the hospital to agree to a process for voluntary recognition of a union.
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“An overwhelming majority of Registered Nurses at Framingham Union Hospital have decided that we have a real and independent voice on all decisions that affect us, the work we do and the patients we take care of,” the letter states. “We would like to be real partners with you in setting priorities for our workplace and ensuring a healthy future for Framingham.”
The letter goes onto to say that the nurses who signed union cards did so because they’re excited to potentially be a part of the MNA, and the decision was made with the best interest of themselves, their facility and their patients in mind.
The union organizing committee also asked that MetroWest Medical Center put resources into bedside care, and not toward union-avoidance consultants who exacerbate stress on nurses and staff.
The MNA did not receive a response to the letter from hospital officials.
MetroWest Medical Center operates three facilities — Framingham Union Hospital on Lincoln Street in Framingham; MetroWest Wellness Center, on Worcester Road (Route 9) in Framingham; and Leonard Morse Hospital, which focuses on mental health services, on Union Street in Natick.
MetroWest Medical Center is owned by Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare.
Nurses raise concerns over working conditions
During a news conference Tuesday in the visitor’s parking lot at MetroWest Medical Center’s Lincoln Street campus in Framingham, two nurses spoke of working conditions.
Kelley Cutler, who has worked at the hospital for about seven years, said she’s enjoyed a sense of community from other nurses, patients and families.
“For years, conditions at this hospital have been declining, and I feel that in large part that is because upper management and Tenet’s refusal to prioritize the same staffing issues that we need to be implementing,” Cutler said. “This has also resulted in a lot of employees leaving the hospital and (it) having very low retention rates.”
While other hospitals have largely recovered from the effects of the pandemic, Cutler said conditions at MetroWest Medical have worsened. She said the ratio of patients to nurses is much higher there than at other hospitals in the surrounding area. Cutler said MetroWest Medical has lost about half of its nurses and has had four more resignations on the floor she works on.
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In her unit, she said nurses take care of about six patients apiece.
“That can be unsafe, because patients are sicker and have more complex medical issues than they have in the past,” Cutler said. She also raised concerns about a lack of administrative assistants and aides, which can be dangerous to patients.
“We brought our concerns to management several times, and we often feel like we’re drowning, reaching for a lifeline but we hear nothing back,” Cutler said.
‘If she said no, it would be considered patient abandonment’
Adam Crawford, a nurse on the hospital’s telemetry floor, also brought up concerns. While he’s only been at the hospital for three months, last week Crawford said he saw a nurse get approached by a floor administrator after a 12-hour shift and was told she was mandated to stay due to understaffing.
“This floor nurse tried to tell the floor administrators who had approached her (that) she was diabetic, and her medication was at home,” Crawford said. “The only response she received was if she said no, it would be considered patient abandonment, and there would be consequences.”
Crawford said that while he was watching this, he said he saw Seymour post a video on Instagram talking about the importance of self-care.
MNA President Katie Murphy, who lives in Framingham and works as an ICU nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, also spoke. She told the Daily News of a past incident while working at MetroWest Medical Center when she was assisting a nurse with a critically ill patient and asked what she could do to help.
“She asked me to help her with another patient,” Murphy said. “The working conditions are unsafe… Nurses are being stretched too thin.”
After the event, nurses boarded an MNA bus that took them to the NLRB regional office in Boston to file for an election that could be held in as soon as three weeks.
Tenet staff members, including the media contact posted on MetroWest Medical Center’s website, did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
How do unions form?
According to the (NLRB), if a majority of workers want to form a union, workers can select a union in one of two ways:
- If at least 30% of workers sign cards or a petition saying they want a union, the NLRB will conduct an election. If a majority of those who vote approve being part of a union, the NLRB will certify the union as the workers’ representative for collective bargaining.
- Employers can also voluntarily recognize a union based on evidence, such as signed union-authorization cards that a majority of employees want a union to represent them.
Once a union has been certified or recognized, the employer is required to bargain over terms and conditions of employment with a union representative.
