PROVIDENCE — As the rain pelted the crowd and mud softened at their feet, hundreds of nurses and frontline staff at Butler Hospital rallied in the first strike at the facility in 37 years.
Starting 6 a.m. Thursday, nurses, mental health workers, and others chanted and carried signs outside the massive main entrance to Butler, a psychiatric hospital.
The strike comes after more than two months of talks failed to produce a new contract for the nearly 800 nurses and other frontline staff at Butler, a 168-bed treatment, teaching and research hospital for psychiatric, movement and memory disorders. The hospital is owned and operated by Care New England, the second largest health care system in the state that also runs Women & Infants Hospital and Kent Hospital.
The hospital has spent roughly $3.2 million so far this month on temporary nurses to work during the strike, as executives promised to keep the hospital running without any interruption to care.
“They could have used that $3.2 million to give fair wages to our Butler staff members,” said Dan Adams, a mental health worker and activities therapist who earns $21.60 per hour. “Instead, we don’t have enough staff, we’re overworked, and our units are unsafe.”
Leaders at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199, the union that represents the striking workers, said it is seeking increases in pay and staffing levels, and wants concerns over a rise in workplace violence addressed. Plus, while current staff have pensions, the hospital wants new hires to have contribution plans for retirement, which are similar to 401(k)s.
Both sides are far apart from agreeing how to handle any of those issues.
Governor Dan McKee said he wants hospital leadership and the union to return to the negotiating table. More than 40 lawmakers signed a letter sent last week to Butler’s leadership, which called wages at the hospital “shameful and unacceptable.”
The union has said for weeks that its members have been prepared to strike — the first at the hospital since 1988.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Beth Iiams, an activities therapist, who has worked at Butler for 24 years. She remembers what it was like to work at Butler before it was roped into the Care New England system in 1996. “It wasn’t run like a corporation. You actually felt appreciated as an employee.”
Iiams now earns less than $25 per hour, and has to pull 16-hour shifts to make ends meet. “I never had to do that before. The cost of everything in life has gone up except our wages,” said Iiams.
Even before the strike officially began, the union and leadership at Butler have released a series of finger-pointing statements.
Union leaders and members are insistent that the workforce suffers from chronically short staffing and turnover because of low wages. According to an internal survey, the union claims 60 percent of its members reported struggling to afford food and housing costs.
“We have Butler staff who are struggling to feed their family and even living out of their cars,” said Dan Camp, a union member who works in behavioral health call intake.
According to the Economic Progress Institute, single adults in Rhode Island need to earn at least $23.47 an hour in order to make ends meet. For two-parent households with children, adults must earn at least $25.75.
But executives said the union’s claims that most workers earn less than $20 an hour is not true.
Of the 716 employees represented by SEIU, 135, or less than 20 percent, make less than $20 per hour, said Mary E. Marran, president and chief operating officer of Butler. In their negotiations, Marran said they focused on bringing up these low-wage workers by creating a new wage floor that would increase to $19.32 per hour over the life of the contract.
In Butler’s last offer in its negotiations with the union, executives presented a deal: Just 55 employees would be below the $20 per hour threshold four weeks after ratification. That means 99 percent of all employees would earn $20 an hour or more by the end of the proposed four-year contract.
Both sides also cannot agree on basic facts: The union said SEIU‘s negotiating committee submitted comprehensive contract proposals on May 7. But Marran said executives presented the hospital‘s “last, best, and final offer” on May 7, and several hours later, the hospital “received a one-sentence communication” that did not “respond to the comprehensive offer put forward.” Then the union’s negotiating committee left the hotel when these discussions were taking place, confirmed Raina C. Smith, a Care New England spokeswoman.
“Their exit from active negotiations interrupted meaningful progress and put us in the position of preparing for today’s strike,” Marran told the Globe.
Standing alongside the workers he represents, Jesse Martin, SEIU 1199’s executive vice president, called Butler’s telling of events “cognitive dissonance” that he “couldn’t explain.”
In an email Marran sent to all Butler employees with the subject line “Separating Fact from Fiction,” and obtained by the Globe, Marran outlined how the union has proposed 20 percent wage increases for nurses, who are already paid much more than lower-wage workers. Marran said the union’s proposal for wages is “furthering the divide between these positions.”
The union, Marran wrote to employees, “is providing misleading and inaccurate information.”
Martin chalked the email up to union busting behavior, and said this messaging from executives has become a “common tactic from an employer who wants to divide our membership.”
“We need to increase the wages of all of our members to be competitive,” said Martin. “If you compare a nurse at Butler who‘s been here for 15 years to a nurse at Women & Infants who has been there for 15 years, Butler’s are making $10 less.”
Butler executives offered a 12 percent increase per position, according to a copy of the proposed contract language that was shared with the Globe.
Earlier this week, the union also filed unfair labor practices against Butler, claiming Care New England has failed to bargain in good faith; surveilled workers as they engage in union activity; threatened, coerced and retaliated against workers for protected union activity; and made unilateral changes to their conditions of employment after their contract expired on March 31.
Patient assaults on workers who required medical attention have also increased fourfold from 2021 to 2024, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration logs.
Iiams, an activities therapist, said she was out of work for a year after she was in the line of fire between one patient attacking another. Adams, a mental health worker, said he was kicked in the head by a patient. He said he was out of work for two weeks with a concussion.
“People are getting hurt, kicked, punched, and they refuse to support us, to see what’s going on,” said K-Lee Butler, a secretary in the alcohol and substance abuse unit who earns $21.32 per hour. “We need to be working together to make sure everyone stays safe. Instead, many members of management shut their doors and pretend like it’s not happening.”
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