Baystate Franklin Nurses Aren’t Asking for the Moon

My daughter Kate is unhappy with how she thinks people are viewing the current nurses strike at Baystate Franklin. Some of the issues are that Baystate does not want to pay overtime to nurses who often work 12 and 15 hours days during their shifts. It’s true that for many workers, overtime isn’t offered until they hit 40 hours.Out of the 209 union nurses only nine nurses work 40 scheduled hours per week. It’s a common practice for nurses to get overtime, and now it feels like management is trying to bust the union. Down in Springfield, there is no nurses union. Here is a link to Kate’s blog about this issue, which is getting pretty nasty.

Kate wants people to know that the amount of money Baystate is paying their legal team far, far exceeds what the hospital’s overtime costs would be for months. It’s unfair and the nurses feel like they are being pilloried, as with the back page ad in the Recorder and that they’re not asking for anything unreasonable.

But the two sides have been locked in battle. So tonight at 7 pm, they will be going on a 24 hour strike. I hope that they can work this out, moving both toward the middle.