L+M: Tuesday is Last Chance to Resolve Union Impasse

Lawrence + Memorial Hospital President and CEO Bruce Cummings said Friday afternoon that the hospital is prepared to bring in replacement workers if a last-ditch bargaining effort Tuesday fails to resolve the impasse with the unions that represent nurses and technicians.

In a press conference Friday afternoon, Cummings said the hospital has done everything it could to avoid a strike, which would begin at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

“We have made numerous proposals to the union, including our most flexible and comprehensive offer yesterday, only to have it rejected out of hand,” Cummings said. “The union’s response is to continue with plans for a strike that will have its members out of work without salaries and benefits for days, possibly weeks or longer.

“That is in no one’s best interest, and I hope our nurses and techs will try to make the union representatives understand that.”

Cummings said the hospital has signed a contract to bring in replacement workers who will “remain on the job, in shifts, for as long as it takes us to reach a contract agreement.” That means that striking workers would be “locked out” after Nov. 30 until an agreement is reached instead of being allowed to return to work after a short strike while negotiations continue, as the unions had planned.

“The unions promised a series of stop-and-start strikes that would have been disruptive to our work here and at Pequot (Health Center in Groton),” Cummings said. “It is unrealistic to think we could function effectively when the union has instructed its members to repeatedly walk on and off the job.

AFT Local 5049 and AFT Local 5051, which represent nearly 800 registered and licensed practical nurses and health care technicians at L+M, had on Thursday offered to mothball the strike if L+M agreed to abide by the National Labor Relations Board’s decision on a complaint filed in August over alleged unfair labor practices related to shifting health care services and jobs away from the hospital. But L+M Healthcare Corp., which owns and operates the hospital, refused.

“Unfortunately, the corporation disagreed and rejected our offer. Worse, their representatives would not agree to additional negotiations we proposed tomorrow and over the weekend,” Lisa D’Abrosca and Stephanie Johnson, the presidents of Local 5049 and 5051, respectively, said in a joint Thursday statement. “"It's a shame they are not putting as much effort into preventing a strike six days before it's actually scheduled as they did to prepare for one five months ago when we hadn’t even begun negotiations."

Cummings, though, said he feels the hospital has gone as far as it can to assure the union membership that their jobs won’t be shifted off-site.

“The bottom line is that we have provided our nurses and techs with every reasonable assurance that their jobs will not be transferred. It is as close to absolute job security as possible in a field that is changing quickly and drastically,” Cummings said. “In fact, the vast majority of these union jobs were protected in our last proposal. Sadly, the unions either don’t understand or don’t accept the notion that no one in this or most other fields can have absolute job security.”