Read our editorial “The Significance of Strikes” here.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) filed a 10-day strike notice on November 1 for 4,000 Brigham and Women’s Hospital nurses.
The nurses voted the previous week to reject the “last, best, and final” contract offer from Mass General Brigham (MGB), the healthcare monopoly operating the hospital.
Brigham nurses were initially set to strike on October 14, following a 93% strike authorization vote in September. The union postponed the strike after MGB presented their offer four days before the strike date.
The rejected offer kept the previous contract’s 5% annual step increases for nurses who have worked fewer than 20 years and added two new 2.5% step increases for senior nurses at the top of the pay scale, who make up 30-40% of the nurses and were receiving no step increases previously. Cost-of-living adjustments were absent in the offer.
The offer also pushed a two-tier healthcare plan, where all currently-employed nurses would have their premiums frozen, while all newly-hired nurses would have to pay an additional 2.5% premium contribution. “They want to pit the young nurses against the old nurses to break our union,” one nurse told The Worker.
Nurses also report being severely understaffed and overworked. One nurse said that MGB does not count newborn babies as patients, assigning three mothers to a nurse without taking into account the newborns of each mother.
The union and MGB will return to the bargaining table November 9, and nurses will strike indefinitely from November 12 if an agreement is not reached. Federal mediators have overseen negotiations since April. One nurse told The Worker, “They aren’t scared of the government, which tells me they have more resources than even politicians do.”
MGB’s board consists of monopoly executives, a third of whom are billionaires according to the union’s recent report. As one nurse put it, the board “doesn’t see sick people, they see dollar bills in the beds.”
The same day the nurses were voting on the contract, MGB announced a round of lay-offs of other hospital workers, citing the need to “strengthen long-term financial sustainability.” Meanwhile, MGB paid CEO Anne Klibanski $9.18 million—an $800,000 raise from the previous year—alongside $4.15 million to COO Ron Walls and $2.3 million to CFO Niyum Gandhi in 2025.
Some of the board members’ companies have received millions from MGB. In early October, MNA hired an attorney to investigate the board of directors for financial misconduct and conflicts of interest, finding multiple cases of board members’ companies receiving lucrative deals with MGB.
John Fish, a vice chair on the board of directors, owns Suffolk Construction, which was awarded MGB building projects totaling $49 million in 2024.
The union’s investigation raised serious concerns about MGB receiving taxpayer-funded subsidies through its non-profit status while the monopoly bankrolls extensive strike contingency plans, including flights and boarding for traveling nurse scabs.
When Brigham nurses struck for one day in July, MGB responded with a four-day lockout and hired scabs recruited through US Nursing—a company owned by Board Chair Scott Sperling’s own investment firm.
Image: Brigham nurses on their one-day strike in July 2026. Credit: The Worker.
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