Staff Report

(Greenfield, MA) Baystate Franklin Medical Center nurses are still negotiating a contract with hospital administrators over wages, staffing ratios and benefits at the Greenfield hospital after six months. The Massachusetts Nurses Association organized a picket in support of the nurses on Wednesday morning ahead of the latest bargaining session with Baystate Health at the St. James Episcopal Church Greenfield, where WHMP spoke with emergency room nurse Ariel Utgoff Ely.

Contract negotiations for nurses at Baystate Franklin Medical Center have been ongoing for six months now. It took 18 months and two strikes to settle on the last contract in 2018, which expired at the end of 2021. The Massachusetts Nurses Union is representing the nurses union in negotiations with Baystate Health with hopes of increasing staff wages and ending an overreliance on travel nurses.

Ahead of a bargaining session with Baystate Health hospital administrators, Massachusetts Nurses Association labor director Karen “Rudy” Renaud said the overreliance on travel nurses is having a detrimental effect on patient care, as nurses have less familiarity with the hospital and it’s patients.
Junior co-chair of the bargaining committee, and a nurse in the maternity ward Marissa Potter says she would like to see the broader Baystate system make more investments into the Franklin county community.
Junior co-chair of the nurses’ union at Baystate Franklin Medical Center, Marissa Potter, says the pandemic has made it so new nurses have less on-the-job experience than new graduates in years past, posing a problem for a hospital already struggling with staff retention.