New England Public Radio

After Baystate Franklin, Another Union Nurse Contract Negotiation Looms

Baystate's visiting and hospice nurses remain without a contract

Union nurses at Baystate Franklin Medical Center resolved a two-year contract dispute last week. But the western Massachusetts hospital company is still negotiating with nurses at other facilities.

About 50 Baystate Visiting and Hospice nurses have been without a contract for roughly two years. Baystate spokesperson Steven Bradley claims the only remaining issue between the two sides is how much the nurses’ wages will increase.

Ultimately what brought the two sides together at Baystate Franklin was the intervention of two Massachusetts legislators. Does Bradley think that same strategy would work with the Visiting and Hospice Nurses?

“Well…we don’t want to make a habit of that. That’s not a good way to go about negotiating contracts,” Bradley says.

A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Nurses Association was unable to speak to details of the contract negotiations, but says the union hopes to schedule more talks soon.

Baystate Franklin Hospital, Nurses Resolve Two-Year Long Contract Dispute

A drawn-out labor dispute at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Massachusetts, may be ending. The nurses have been working without a contract for more than two years, but Friday afternoon a tentative contract deal was announced. It included a compromise on overtime pay, which had been the main sticking point.

“Both parties made significant concessions to get to this point, both giving up things that were very key to us in the name of trying to get an agreement that we can live with, work with, and move forward with together,” says Chuck Gijanto, President of Baystate Franklin.

State Senator Stan Rosenberg and state Representative Steve Kulik helped bring the parties together. The tentative deal led the nurses to cancel a one-day strike scheduled for this coming Monday. The deal still must be ratified by the nurses.

Northampton Firefighters Reach Contract Agreement, Pending City Council Approval

Northampton, Massachusetts, and its firefighters have reached an agreement on a new contract. But there’s no guarantee this lengthy labor dispute will be coming to an end.  

Northampton’s firefighters have been working without a contract for the last three years.This deal not only covers back pay for that timeframe, but extends through 2016. It is about 90-thousand-dollars less than what an arbitration panel awarded firefighters, though the city council rejected that last month because of the cost.   Northampton Mayor David Narkiewicz says he consulted councilors before starting negotiations again…

“…to get a sense of the council as to what type of contract, what type of funding level might be more supported,” Narkiewicz says.

The firefighters’ union has already ratified this agreement. Scott Flynn is the union president.
 
“We just hope that the council recognizes the concessions that we have made, the fact that we have become, or stayed or remained team players and that we all want to move forward,” Flynn says.
 
City Council President Bill Dwight says he’s optimistic the council will approve the contract, but notes it must get 6 of 9 votes to pass. The Northampton City Council meets Thursday Night at 7.
 
 

Springfield Teachers Sign Contract

After eighteen months of negotiations, Springfield public school teachers signed a contract this week that will hold for the next four years.

The new contract raises teachers’ salaries each year of the four-year deal. That’s a step Springfield Education Association head Timothy Collins says is essential to keeping teachers in the district.

“We became sort of a training ground for teachers in Hampden County. People would come, get a job with us, take advantage of our professional development, start to really hit their stride with teachers, and then look around and move out of the district.”

Under the new contract, teachers will see salaries that are more competitive with surrounding districts. Springfield Superintendent Dan Warwick says when the city was run by a state Financial Control Board between 2004 and 2009, teacher salaries lagged behind other districts by approximately $8,000 to $9,000 a year. He says salaries will now be on par with other western Massachusetts districts. Also in the contract is a reduction in teachers’ sick days. Warwick says that’s part of an effort to curb abuse of the sick time system by some teachers. 

“We put provisions in the contract, and in the new evaluation system to focus on attendance, so teachers are going to be held accountable for their attendance.”

Warwick says those provisions include a requirement for teachers to provide a doctors’ note to principals after three consecutive sick days. He adds the length of this contract will provide stability for Springfield schools. The district has seen tumultuous contract negotiations in the past.

Resolutions Would Urge Baystate Franklin to Keep Services Intact

At least ten towns have introduced resolutions that would urge Baystate Franklin hospital in Greenfield, Massachusetts not to cut back medical services. The push comes as the hospital and union nurses continue an 18-month labor dispute.

Organizers say an increasing number of patients have been transferred to Baystate in Springfield, due to cuts in specialty services in Greenfield over the last ten years. The towns’ resolutions would formally ask Baystate not to make further cuts.

“They’re more symbolic than anything,” says Donna Stern, a registered nurse and co-chair of the nurses’ bargaining unit at Baystate Franklin. She says while symbolic, the resolutions attempt to put community pressure on the hospital.

“The people of Franklin County are saying, ‘wait a second here. You’re still a non-profit, you still have a charitable mission, you still need to be held to meeting that charitable mission, we’re going to start holding you accountable,’ ” says Stern.

Stern insists the resolutions are unrelated to ongoing contract negotiations between Baystate and the nurses – who have been without a contract for 15 months. But she says union nurses have been involved in starting town petitions. Baystate regional president Chuck Gijanto says the resolutions are a way for the union to drum up public support.

“I fully believe that the commentary about the services the hospital are offering, are completely linked to the fact that we do not have a contract in place,” says Gijanto.

He adds that no services have been transferred from Baystate Franklin in his five years there. The next bargaining session between the hospital and union nurses is April 24th.

Contract Extension for UMass Basketball Coach Derek Kellogg: A Winning Investment?

UMass Amherst officially inked a contract extension with men’s basketball coach Derek Kellogg this week. The contract, including incentive pay, could be worth up to $800,000 a year.

The Umass Minutemen turned in their first winning season last year since Derek Kellogg began his tenure as head coach in 2008. Kellogg  was a point guard at UMass from 1991 to 1995 when the Minutemen grew in national prominence under coach John Calipari. Before he left UMass, Calipari reportedly signed a multi-million dollar contract with the school.

Dr. Sharianne Walker is chair of the Department of Sports Management at Western New England University. She says investing in a coach with strong local ties could help grow UMass’ basketball program, and could benefit the university as a whole. She says a prominent sports team can serve as a “front porch” of an institution.

“It’s where you see people learning about a particular institution, encouraging them to become more engaged definitely in terms of revenue opportunities, and creating better revenue opportunities, moving into new markets, gaining new fans. There’s really a strategic value to investing in athletics.”

But, Walker says, if the team does well, bringing in more outside revenue, state funding for the University’s athletic programs could decrease.

“And I also think in this day and age, it’s just like with public support for stadiums and arena finance, that people tend to believe that taxpayers should be paying for education, should not necessarily be paying for sports enterprises.”

Kellogg’s contract includes a $75,000 bonus if the team reaches the NCAA tournament, but also includes a $20,000 bonus if the team achieves an eighty percent graduation rate.