MNA: RNs at Beverly and Addison Gilbert Hospitals Cast Overwhelming Vote to Ratify New Contract Help Recruit and Retain the Staff Needed to Ensure Optimum Patient Care

Three-year pact will provide wage increases ranging from 23 – 30 percent

BEVERLY, Mass., April 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The registered nurses working at Northeast Hospital Corporation's (NEHC) Beverly and Addison Gibert hospitals, who are unionized with the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), cast an overwhelming vote this week to ratify a new three-year contract that nurses believe will help them to recruit and retain nurses to ensure safer patient care.

"Our MNA nurses at Northeast are pleased to have ratified our new contract which continues to focus our efforts on retaining and recruiting experienced registered nurses in order to provide safe quality patient care for the community that we love," said Larn Beard, RN and co-chairperson of the MNA local bargaining unit at NEHC.

The new three-year contract, which runs from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2027, will provide wage increases of between 24 – 30 percent based on their years of service. The pact includes across the board increases of 18.5 percent, including 7 percent in 2025, 6 percent in 2026 and 5 percent in 2027, which is in addition to annual 4 percent annual increases provided by the nurses stepped wage scale. It also includes a yearly increase to the nurses' entry level step on the scale to help recruit new nurses and a new 4% increase for nurses at the top of the pay scale.

The nurses were seeking a contract that would put Northeast Hospital Corporation in a better position to recruit and retain skilled nurses on the North Shore as wages had fallen well behind the market in recent years, resulting in too many nurses leaving to work at better staffed, higher paying employers.

A tentative agreement was reached during negotiations on March 25, the day after hundreds of Northeast nurses conducted an informational picket outside the entrance to Beverly Hospital.

The Beth Israel Lahey Health System owns Northeast Hospital Corporation, which includes Beverly Hospital, Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, and Lahey Outpatient Center in Danvers.

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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 25,000 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 lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on healthcare issues affecting nurses and the public.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association