Brigham and Women's nurses set open-ended strike for 12 November

A strike with no end date

State law requires ten days' notice before a hospital strike, which is why the union filed on 1 November for a 12 November start.

The difference from July is the missing end date. The union says the strike will run until Brigham and Women's Hospital agrees a contract. An open-ended walkout means indefinite contingency staffing at one of Boston's flagship hospitals. For the nurses it means no paychecks and no hospital contribution to their health insurance premiums for as long as it lasts. Neither side has said how many replacement nurses the hospital will bring in, or how long it could keep them.

It had already set a walkout for 14 October, then postponed it so members could vote on the hospital's offer.

July is the only guide to how this runs. Nurses struck for one day on 8 July, the first strike in the hospital's history. Management then locked them out for four more days, saying it was obliged to honor contracts with nearly 1,300 temporary replacement nurses.

The hospital says it is ready. "While we had hoped to avoid another strike, we are prepared to continue providing safe, high-quality care throughout any work stoppage," it said in a statement on 1 November.

What the nurses want

The list has barely moved since the summer: limits on temporary nurses, a differential for nurses floated between units, insurance choice, and a wage scale the union calls competitive for new and experienced staff.

Nurses rejected the offer Mass General Brigham called its "last, best, and final" one on 23 October. They had voted to authorize an open-ended strike on 24 September by 93 percent, 2,986 to 215.

"We are ready to strike but are equally prepared to negotiate a fair contract that protects patient care, respects nurses, and averts the strike," said Kelly Morgan, a labor and delivery nurse who chairs the bargaining committee. She told the Boston Globe the walkout was "not something we want to do".

Money is the sticking point. The Globe reported that the union had sought a 3 percent raise for the first six months of a contract and 4 percent for the following 12. Mass General Brigham's 10 October offer kept the existing step scale with 5 percent annual increases. It added a new 2.5 percent top step in each year of a contract running to 30 September 2028.

Pay at the top of that scale is already high by local standards. Brigham nurses start at $86,700 a year, and those with 20 years of service earn at least $220,000, according to Mass General Brigham. Some 1,322 nurses, nearly a third of the local union, sit at that maximum.

Two versions of the finances

Each side has its own balance sheet. The union points to Mass General Brigham's reported $2.39 billion profit in its latest fiscal year.

The system describes something tighter. Chief financial officer Niyum Gandhi and chief operating officer Ron Walls wrote that Mass General Brigham was "running more than $300M behind budget". Its 0.3 percent operating margin falls short of the 1.5 percent goal it says it needs to fund patient care and the planned Brigham tower. The hospital says the issues still open "relate to compensation and benefits, including wages and health insurance", and that no patient or workplace safety proposals remain unresolved.

The union disputes that framing. It calls the walkout an unfair labor practice strike, citing federal labor complaints filed against the hospital since July.

Pressure inside the system is not in doubt. STAT reported on 3 November that chief executive Anne Klibanski had emailed its roughly 85,000 employees late the previous Monday, warning of urgent financial challenges. That came less than two weeks after Mass General Brigham said it had begun laying off workers.

What happens next

Everything now runs to 9 November. Talks resume that Monday, three days before the walkout, with a federal mediator assisting.

Length is the open question. The last open-ended strike the same union authorized, at Saint Vincent in 2021, lasted 301 days. If a deal lands next week the notice can still be withdrawn; the union says it is prepared to negotiate and avert the strike.

Boston city officials have pressed for a deal. "I hope that all parties continue to negotiate with urgency to avoid a strike," a city spokesperson said. "Patients are counting on it."