GREENFIELD — Baystate Franklin Medical Center nurses have announced the day for their next one-day strike.
Following a rejection by hospital officials of an offer by U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern to host negotiations between the two parties, local members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association called for a one-day strike on Feb. 28, starting at 7 a.m.
“We do not understand why Baystate would refuse Congressman McGovern’s offer to host negotiations,” local union head Donna Stern said in a press release issued Friday. “Our community deserves better.”
The strike will be the second by the nurses during 16 months of negotiations over issues like staffing numbers, health care and overtime pay.
“We are disappointed with this decision, which does not reflect recent progress we have made in our negotiations with the MNA,” Baystate Health spokeswoman Shelly Hazlett said in a statement. Acting Baystate Franklin President Ron Bryant was unavailable for comment Friday.
The hospital declined to comment on if there will be a lockout, as happened during the 24-hour strike the nurses held in June. Baystate Health declined to comment on whether traveling nurses will be brought in. Baystate declined to comment on the potential financial cost of the strike or if a potential lockout could cost them about $1 million, as it did last time.
Last time the hospital said it had to lock out the striking nurses because the replacement nurses would only work for a minimum of three days.
Hazlett said in her statement the hospital leadership has taken a number of “strong and positive steps in an attempt to reach agreement on a fair contract, including offering substantial new proposals on staffing and health insurance, and withdrawing several of our proposals the MNA opposed.”
Nurses spokesman Joe Markman disagreed with the characterization of the talks.
“It’s simply not true,” Markman said. “They did not offer any actual improvements in those areas. They’re not making substantial offers.”
The hospital said in its statement earlier this week it has offered the nurses dates in late February to meet and continue dialogue. Markman said that statement is “disingenuous” in its nature.
Markman said the nurses informed the hospital they would be going to a strike vote after a breakdown in negotiations. This followed off-the-record talks last month, in which the nurses first said there was “conceptual progress.”
“Baystate Franklin leadership has been aware for some time that a strike was possible,” Hazlett said in the statement. “We will now move forward with plans to assure that our community has access to quality health care services during this event.”
Despite not seeing eye-to-eye on when they could be meeting, there is a chance the strike could be avoided, nurses bargaining committee member Suzanne Love said, if the two sides can sit down for a negotiation and make progress on core issues toward a contract or settlement.
“We’d love to call off the strike,” Love said. “We don’t want to go on strike. If they come to the table and make good progress, we will not go on strike.”