BMC South RNs and Health Professionals Cast Overwhelming Vote to Reject BMC Administration's "Last, Best & Final Offer," Call on Administration to Come Back to the Table to Negotiate a Fair Agreement

BMC South caregivers contend the administration's "take it or leave it" stance in the negotiations demonstrates disrespect for the contributions of staff and undermines the facility's ability to recruit and retain staff to ensure safe patient care for their chronically- underserved community

BROCKTON, Mass., May 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A super majority of the 475 registered nurses and health professionals represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) at BMC South (formerly Good Samaritan Medical Center) on Wednesday and Thursday cast a 96% vote to reject what BMC executives had characterized as their "last, best and final offer," and call on them to come back to the table to resume negotiations for a fair agreement for the benefit of staff, their patients and the vulnerable greater Brockton community served by BMC South.

"With this vote we are sending a clear message that what BMC has proposed and the bullying manner in which they have proposed it is unacceptable to all the staff who have stayed here through years of turmoil and chronic under staffing," said Maureen Healy, RN, a longtime nurse at BMC South and co-chair of the MNA bargaining unit at the facility. "Our members and the people we care for deserve better and we hope this vote can convince management to come back to the table to finish this process respectfully."

The vote to reject BMC's final offer follows nine months of negotiations where management wasted significant time making onerous demands to eliminate the staff's pension, dramatically cut paid time off and to further cut the staffing at the hospital. While executives eventually relented on most of those proposals, they have maintained proposals that will shift thousands of dollars of annual health insurance costs onto insured staff members.

Staff have also been attempting to bargain for BMC to broaden the health insurance network, as many caregivers' report difficulty finding eligible physicians to treat them and their families. BMC runs its own self-insured health plans for their employees, and staff complain that the Select Plan (the one affordable plan that a majority of insured staff are in) has failed to expand its provider network since BMC bought BMC South and BMC Brighton a year and a half ago. These issues coupled with management's proposal for three years of wage scale increases that are lower than inflation, as well as the daily refusal to ensure appropriate staffing create fear that there will be a mass exodus of staff if these proposals were put into effect.

The MNA bargaining committee has repeatedly pointed to the more than $400 million in public funds allocated to BMC by the state to help finance costs of the first five years of its purchase of the former Good Samaritan and St. Elizabeth's Medical Centers in their call for a more equitable agreement.

How the Process Reached This Point

In February, the nurses voted 99% to authorize a strike over these issues. On April 20, they issued formal notice of a three-day strike scheduled for April 30 through May 3. On April 23, after consulting with local, state, and federal officials, the MNA agreed to withdraw the strike notice with the understanding that executives would return to the table on April 28 with an open mind. Talks that day produced moderate progress through the exchange of off-the-record proposals, and the session ended in the late afternoon with the MNA urging management to continue productive negotiations. But after 8 p.m. that night, BMC management sent an email stating that negotiations were over and attaching a take-it-or-leave-it "Last, Best and Final Offer." The email also warned that if the MNA bargaining committee did not accept the ultimatum within less than three days, without any changes, BMC executives would reduce the wage proposal by denying retro pay thereby eliminating wage increases for the first six months of the new contract.

In the week following BMC's final offer, the MNA and BMC management engaged in negotiations with the nurses of BMC Brighton, who had also taken a strike authorization vote back in December. Though the issues were the same, there was no ultimatum delivered by management and talks moved towards a tentative agreement with BMC Brighton nurses, which was reached on May 6th (the vote to ratify that agreement is pending). It is important to note that the "final" offer for BMC South is more than $10/hour less than what management recently negotiated with the MNA RNs at BMC Brighton. 

Members of the BMC South negotiating team attended the BMC Brighton negotiations and they, along with MNA staff, were surprised at the difference in tone and treatment by management. Once that agreement was reached, it was expected that talks with BMC South would resume, but that offer was rejected.

"They treat us like enemies that they have to threaten and disrespect. We've told them that we have stayed here for our community through the opioid epidemic, COVID, the fires and floods that closed surrounding hospitals and the decline and fall of Steward. We are proud and tough people and we just won't accept being bullied," explained Liz Erwin, RN, the other co-chair of the MNA local bargaining unit. "We decided the best course of action was to take it to the members so they could voice their reaction to this mistreatment, which they have done."

The nurses and health professionals of BMC South serve vulnerable communities which have among the highest concentration of patients covered under Medicare and Medicaid--a population of medically-complex patients that require the staffing and resources to meet patients' needs. These caregivers are concerned that without a contract that allows them to recruit and retain the staff needed to deliver appropriate care, the communities they serve will continue to suffer the consequences of decades of neglect.

"When BMC management chooses cuts over care, we have no choice but to stand together for ourselves and our patients. Our vote says we will not allow management's hardline positions to compromise patient safety or disrespect the hard work staff perform every day--the same staff who have stuck with their hospital through thick and thin," said Erwin. "We are not making this stand for ourselves alone—we are making this stand to protect our patients and our community."

Safe Staffing at the Heart of Nurses' and Health Professionals' Fight

Adding insult to injury is the BMC South executives' daily refusal to follow already agreed upon staffing rules, which specify the number of nurses required for each unit, with specific limits on the number of patients a nurse can safely care for at one time. This includes executives cancelling staff when they are already below their staffing rules and when there are as many as 100 patients waiting for care in the emergency department.

Staff at BMC South have been documenting these conditions and have filed hundreds of official reports of incidents of unsafe staffing and degraded patient care because of management's refusal to staff consistent with the established rules and patient needs. The MNA recently submitted official complaints with the Department of Public Health and the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) calling for an investigation, including 245 signed reports of unsafe staffing, with 71 instances where those conditions impeded the provision of care required for those patients. 

All this follows years of sacrifice by all BMC South staff members to protect their community following the collapse of the Steward Healthcare system, as well as the closure of Norwood Hospital due to a flood in 2020 and the closure of Brockton Hospital after the fire in 2023. These calamities resulted in the dedicated staff holding the line as more patients flooded their already understaffed emergency department, while staff struggled every day to keep their patients safe under the worst conditions. Now, under new owners – who claim to center the care of vulnerable communities as their mission--the staff hoped conditions would improve, but they have not. In fact, in too many cases conditions have worsened as BMC repeatedly fails to adhere to the hospital's minimum basic staffing plans.

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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 26,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association