MNA: RNs at Lawrence General Hospital Cast Overwhelming Vote to Ratify New Three-Year Contract that Provides Improvements in Staffing, Wages, and Benefits to Increase Recruitment and Retention of Staff Needed to Ensure Safer Patient Care

LAWRENCE, Mass., June 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The registered nurses working at Lawrence General Hospital, who are unionized with the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), cast an overwhelming vote on Tuesday to ratify a new three-year contract that will provide improvements in staffing, wages and benefits that the nurses sought to ensure the facility's ability to recruit and retain the nurses needed to ensure safe patient care.

"We are thrilled to have negotiated and now ratified a new contract that we believe will allow us to secure the nursing staff needed to ensure better care for our patients and the community we are so proud to serve," said Laurie Spheekas, RN, a longtime nurse at the facility and co-chair of the nurses local bargaining unit with the MNA.  "Our members were united throughout this process in our commitment to stand up for the dignity of our nursing workforce and for the highest standards of patient care, and we are grateful for the outpouring of support we have received from members of the community who supported this effort."

Highlights of the pact include:

• Significant Market Competitive Wage Increases:  The three year-deal which runs from Oct. 2024 – October 2027 includes improvements to the nurse' wage scale and across the board increases that will provide salary increases ranging from 15 – 23 percent over the life of the agreement depending on the nurse's years of service, with the beginning hourly wage jumping from $34.79 to $39.80 over the three years, and a top wage moving from $73 to $85.81.  The contract also includes increases to differentials for evening, charge, rotating night shifts and for nurses precepting newly graduated staff.
  
  
• Improvements in Staffing:  The contract calls for the facility to increase staffing to allow for charge nurses on nearly all units to begin their shift without a patient assignment, with special new requirements for charge nurses without an assignment in the emergency department and the maternity unit.  Similar requirements have already been in place for the medical surgical, telemetry and intensive care unit. A charge nurse is an RN on each floor/unit who is responsible for managing all aspects of nursing responsibilities during each shift, from processing patients in and out of the unit, to serving as a liaison with physicians about patient care needs, as well as to be available to help a less experienced nurse with a complex patient, or to take on patient assignments when other staff become overburdened due to an increase in admissions.
  
  The agreement also provides for a commitment for LGH to ensure appropriate ancillary staff so that nurses are not pulled away from appropriate professional nursing care duties to perform tasks that should be performed by support staff.
  
  
• Protection and Enhancement of Benefits:  The agreement preserves the nurses' current contribution levels of health insurance and dental benefit while adding access to the health insurance benefit for nurses working part time (20 hours per week).  It also includes a new life insurance benefit and improves the nurses' bereavement leave benefit. 

The contract was negotiated over a period of eight months (first session held on Oct. 6, 2024) and included the nurses holding an information picket outside the facility on April 4th.  The job action stimulated a more concerted effort by the employer to begin a series of negotiating sessions, ultimately resulting in a tentative agreement on June 2, 2025.

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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