Read our editorial on the significance of strikes here.
Nurses at Boston Medical Center (BMC) gathered in protest at the main BMC campus on July 22 and again on July 30, demanding progress in contract negotiations with the Boston, MA hospital system.
The nurses are organized mainly under the 1199 Service Employees International Union Local (1199SEIU) with some under the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
The hospital monopoly is pushing a contract which locks nurse wage scales in place, cuts paid time off, reduces staffing, and increases insurance fees. According to nurses who spoke with The Worker, they have worked without a contract since mid-July.
This continues a decade-long trend reducing BMC nurses wages to the lowest paid nurses in the city. “I don’t know a nurse that doesn’t have two jobs,” a nurse told The Worker. Executives gave themselves a 45% raise last year.
The hospital monopoly uses underhanded methods to lower wages according to nurses who spoke with The Worker. Nurses pay $150 per month and $20 per day for the BMC-owned parking garage. In negotiations, they seek to reduce the nurses’ sick and vacation days, and to introduce a new $150/month surcharge to the nurses’ insurance plan, which, once in the contract, nurses fear the hospital will be able to further raise at will.
Nurses say they are overworked due to BMC’s policy of understaffing, which they say is a result of BMC’s active policy of replacing experienced nurses with younger nurses and travel nurses. Managers view older nurses as harder to control and less likely to break union rules.
According to a nurse in the Operating Room, more than half the nurses are travelers, who are non-union and able to be fired at will. This is in violation of the union contract. BMC cannot make up for the 20 nurses who have left in the last month alone. Due to the shortage, the hospital forces nurses to work past the end of their shift, which also violates the contract. One nurse said she has seen others working for over 16 hours.
One nurse expressed frustration of the timidity of the union in negotiations. “In response to their low-ball offer of 0% wage increase, [SEIU] went down from 30% to 22%. And then they stay at 0% and we go to 19%. It doesn’t make any sense.” BMC’s latest offer is around 3% over the life of the contract.
1199 leadership accepted a sellout agreement (2-5% annual wage increases) and averted strikes at two other BMC hospitals in April despite 96% of hospital workers voting to authorize a one-day strike at the end of March.
BMC’s lawyer in the negotiations is also representing Mass General Brigham against their workers. Brigham is one of the largest healthcare monopolies in the country, and is actively suppressing healthcare worker struggles in Boston.
A nurse told The Worker, “We need to coordinate a strike with Brigham. They have the same lawyer. If we strike at the same time they won’t be able to do anything.” The nurse continued, “all the nurses on my floor are ready to strike… [BMC] can last one or two weeks. One month or more, just no way.”
Image: Boston Medical Center nurses protesting, July 22. Credit: /u/jrojas909 on Reddit.
This article was updated 8/16/2026 to correct a typo in the name of 1199SEIU.
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