MNA and SEIU Local 767 Sign Pact of Aid and Support
Prepare for Organizing Push in Southeastern Mass.

In a show of union solidarity and cooperation, the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) and the Hospital Workers Union, Local 767 SEIU, AFL-CIO have entered into an "agreement of mutual aid and support in the collective bargaining process, organizing, the legislative/political arena, and other health care policy forums."

Local 767 of SEIU represents 3,600 health care workers in seven hospitals, 10 nursing homes and a number of home health agencies throughout Southeastern Massachusetts the Cape and Islands, including workers at Good Samaritan Medical Center, Cape Cod Hospital, Falmouth Hospital, Jordan Hospital and Tobey Hospital. The local's members include nurses' aides, technicians, clerical workers, health care professionals and other support personnel.

The Massachusetts Nurses Association represents more than 19,000 registered nurses and health care professionals working in 85 health care facilities statewide, including a number of hospitals, VNAs and public health departments on the South Shore, including Good Samaritan Medical Center, Jordan Hospital, Tobey Hospital, Cape Cod and Falmouth Hospital.

"This agreement signals a real commitment by those of us who organize health workers to combine our efforts and share resources to step up organizing and enhance the power of unionized health care workers in this regions of the state," said Karen Higgins, a nurse at Boston Medical Center and chair of the MNA Cabinet for Labor Relations, who helped forge this alliance.

According to Mike Fadel, Director of Local 767, "The agreement makes sense in world dominated by managed care and dramatic restructuring, where all health care workers need a coordinated, and unified voice to combat the actions of health care administrators bent on putting profits ahead of patients."

In addition to pledging cooperation on issues and projects, the agreement provides a process for handling turf issues as the two unions pursue organizing drives in facilities of mutual interest.

"We have received great interest from nurses in the Fall River and New Bedford area about organizing with the MNA, as has Local 767. This agreement clears the way for the MNA to concentrate on organizing registered nurses, while SEIU can concentrate on all other health care worker groups. This allows us to focus on organizing and provides a united front against employers who might normally attempt to pit one union against the other," Higgins explained.

"When all workers are organized, everybody benefits, and when all workers are organized cooperatively, management is less able to divide the workforce to stall organizing efforts," Fadel said.

The cooperative relationship between the two unions has already been demonstrated at Jordan Hospital, where registered nurses from the MNA and health care workers from Local 767, participated in a highly success rally and candlelight vigil to protest layoffs at the facility and to call for improvements in patient care.

At the demonstration, the President of the health care workers bargaining unit at Jordan Hospital read the text of the agreement to an assembled audience of community members, employees and the media.

"We are delighted to have the support and to have developed such a close working relationship with our unionized colleagues here at Jordan Hospital," said Joanne Ford, chair of the MNA bargaining unit. "Standing together, we send a clear and strong message to management of our resolve on issues of patient care and workplace rights."

The agreement with SEIU Local 767 mirrors an agreement the MNA had signed with SEIU Local 285 back in 1986. That agreement covers health care workers represented by the two unions throughout most of the other regions of the Commonwealth.