By Victoria Post
Read our editorial on the significance of strikes here.
Hundreds of Butler Hospital workers in Providence, Rhode Island, are nearing their seventh week on strike as negotiations with hospital management continue. Butler Hospital is the only “non-profit” free-standing psychiatric hospital in Rhode Island that provides care to adults, seniors, and adolescents. Workers with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199NE voted to strike on May 15 after months of unsuccessful negotiations with the hospital administration and having been without a contract since March 31. The union filed an unfair labor practice complaint in May with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), but the complaint is still pending a final verdict.
The strike concerns two main issues: wage increases and health savings account (HSA) contributions. The union is demanding market-rate wages, as workers’ pay has been eaten up by inflation over the years. While the Trump administration has campaigned on decreasing inflation following the over 20% increase over the course of Biden’s presidency, inflation has continued to increase under Trump’s presidency as well. The hospital has so far rejected the demand for market-adjusted pay, instead offering an experience-based pay raise in addition to a modest standard pay increase, a tactic that aims to divide workers based on seniority.
For the HSA contributions, the proposal from the hospital entirely phases out employer contributions over the course of four years, which the union has rejected. Many of the workers have been on low-cost health insurance plans due to how little income they take home.
Butler Hospital’s President Mary Marran, whose salary is over half-a-million dollars, claims that “the union seems more focused on ways to prolong the strike than on collaborating at the table to reach a resolution,” as if workers are striking for the sake of striking. The union has expressed reservations about the hospital’s claim that it cannot afford better pay and benefits for workers, citing a recent $15.7 million land sale on May 30th and a Quarter 1 profit gain of $3.4 million.
On May 31st, Butler Hospital terminated the healthcare benefits of all striking workers. Additionally, the hospital president has stated that striking workers have been permanently replaced with scabs and will not be allowed to return to work. However, if the union’s complaint with the NLRB is approved, the hospital will be required to reinstate all members on strike. Striking workers are fighting not only for improved pay and healthcare, but for their jobs themselves.
The demands remain unresolved after a bargaining meeting last week, with the union releasing a press release stating, “Butler’s union bargaining committee left negotiations with no clear end in sight.”
The ongoing fight at Butler Hospital is another example of the sharpening class struggle in the healthcare industry that is a part of the larger wave of strikes by the working class across the country.
Photo: Butler hospital workers on strike. Photo retrieved from SEIU.
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