Overview
- More than 4,000 Brigham and Women’s Hospital nurses walked back into scheduled shifts Monday morning after a one-day strike on July 8 and a subsequent four-day employer lockout that extended the work stoppage to five days.
- Mass General Brigham hired roughly 1,300 temporary nurses on five-day contracts to cover care during the stoppage, which the system says required locking out permanent staff until those replacement contracts expired.
- The nurses returned without a new contract after about eight months of bargaining and repeated negotiation sessions, with wages, rising employee health insurance costs and limits on temporary staffing remaining the main unresolved issues.
- Rallies and picketing will continue when nurses are off shift and roughly 450 MGB Home Care clinicians are continuing a separate weeklong strike that concludes Tuesday with a public rally at system headquarters.
- The dispute has drawn broad public and political attention, and its outcome could affect recruitment, retention and patient-care continuity at MGB as negotiators face heightened pressure to reach a deal.