Nurses at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth have reached a contract agreement with administrators — two months after taking a strike authorization vote in the face of sputtering talks.
The 400-plus nurses represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to ratify the proposed settlement.
“BID-Plymouth nurses have expressed very positive feelings about our tentative agreement,” said negotiating team member and operating room nurse Ashley Newcomb.
“We have worked together to overcome many challenges and secure significant improvements to our staffing and wages,” she said.
But several other nurses told the Independent that they are unhappy with the deal. They say the contract provides substantial raises only to the most senior nurses and does little to address their top priority — inadequate staffing.
“With no widespread staffing changes, conditions at BID- Plymouth are not safer for staff or patients,” one nurse said.
The contract – which runs retroactively from January 2025 through December 2027 – boosts the pay of all nurses, but the size of the raise varies with a nurse’s length of service.
The median hourly rate will jump from $53 an hour to $62.78.
By 2027, the median annual salary of a nurse working 40 hours a week would be $130,582, according to data provided by the MNA.
But over the life of the contract, the largest percentage increases would go to nurses with the most years of service.
Under the agreement, the hourly rate for a second-year nurse would increase by 13.62 percent, from $40.96 to $46.54.
For nurses with 18 years of experience, however, the hourly rate would jump by 27.4 percent, from $70.85 to $90.26.
“Changes to the contract only benefit the top earners and are a slap in the face of a generation of nurses who decided to enter this field during a global pandemic,” said the nurse who complained that the contract doesn’t do enough to address staffing shortages.
Another nurse with limited years of experience posted this on the nurses’ Facebook page: “Happy for all you 30 percent folks. But I will get $.88 an hour raise.”
A third nurse called the wage agreement “actually sad.”
“Steps 1-4 (one to four years of experience) make LESS than what was proposed by the hospital a month ago and we were offended by… Pay scale looks like a big win for senior staff,” the nurse wrote on Facebook.
A union spokesman said the pay increases were intentionally weighted in favor of long-term employees.
“We made strategic decisions around wages,” said MNA spokesman Joe Markman. “The vast majority of BID- Plymouth nurses are clustered at the top of the wage scale, many of whom haven’t received a meaningful raise in years.
“This agreement corrects that — with top-step nurses receiving increases of up to 27 percent, a long-overdue acknowledgment of their experience and service,” he said.
He pointed to several other contract provisions that he said will benefit the nurses.
The proposal eliminates mandatory overtime and prevents so-called “charge nurses” — floor managers — from being assigned patients when units are understaffed.
To make that work, the union said, the hospital is adding four nurse positions in two units — critical care and clinical decision.
But nurses have been advocating for additional nurses in each of the hospital’s 25 units.
Donna Doherty, senior vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer, said she was “pleased” with the agreement, which “will invest in our nursing team with a comprehensive package which includes market competitive rates reflecting the extraordinary care they provide our community.
“We look forward to the MNA ratification vote,” she said in an emailed statement.
Even those who don’t like the proposed agreement concede it’s likely to pass. A winning vote requires a simple majority — and most of the hospital’s nurses are longtime employees.
Just two months ago, an overwhelming majority of union members voted to authorize a strike.
The March 20 vote allowed the nurses’ bargaining committee to schedule a three-day strike for an undetermined date. The union would have been required to give the hospital 10 days’ notice before walking off the job.
The nurses argued that heavy patient workloads were compromising the care they can provide patients. They had been in negotiations since early October.
The contract, which was set to expire in December, was extended.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.