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A week after the Tufts lockout, pensions keep nurses and hospital at odds as barbs continue to fly BY SARAH BETANCOURT @SWEETADELINEVT
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07.20.17 - 07.27.17
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DIGBOSTON.COM
But despite coming to some agreements on wages and safe staffing levels, the two sides remain far apart when it comes to pensions. At stake, and at issue:
• Tufts wants to slowly transition 341 nurses from defined benefit retirement plans (in which an employee’s pension payments are calculated according to length of service and the salary they earned at the time of retirement and paid by the employer) to 403(b) defined contribution retirement plans (basically 401(k) plans for nonprofit employees in which their pension payments are based on how much they and their employer contribute while they’re working) as a cost-saving measure. Both nurses and Tufts would be contributing to the new plan. Tufts says the price of maintaining what currently exists for those 341 nurses is $11 million. But the union says the 403(b) plan would increase the amount nurses would have to contribute for
their own retirement. Several of those 341 nurses are over 30 years into their careers at Tufts, are close to retirement, and are furious over this not being what they bargained for. As a concession, on the eve of the strike, Tufts made a final offer to the union to extend the current pension plan for 18 months but claims the union left the table without considering the proposal.
• The MNA is proposing a Taft-Hartley plan, a
multiemployer pension plan that would involve freezing the existing defined benefit plan that a quarter of the nurses are on. The bargaining team claims that this would have generated “substantial hospital savings that could be used to fund staffing improvements to protect patient care, and ensure market competitive wages.” They told DigBoston that Tufts management rejected the proposal despite knowing it would save the hospital $96 million overall. In response, Tufts management said that the
PHOTOS BY SARAH BETANCOURT
Tufts Medical Center nurses and Tufts management are no better off now than they were a week ago, just before the 24-hour strike and four-day lockout of 1,200 nurses. In the first such strike in Boston in 31 years, the workers, who are represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) union, decided to strike after failing to reach an agreement with management in 34 bargaining sessions that started in April 2016. When the nurses attempted to return to work last Thursday, they were locked out by human resources. The hospital hired agency replacement nurses who had agreed to five-day contracts when the union gave their 10-day strike notice. There has been some progress. In addition to largely sympathetic media attention on the striking workers, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is in contact with President and CEO of Tufts Medical Center Dr. Michael Wagner and the Tufts administration. Walsh, the former head of the Boston Building Trades, is offering to facilitate a negotiation.