4,000 nurses walk out in Massachusetts' largest-ever healthcare strike as Mass General Brigham refuses to budge

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: More than 4,400 nurses and healthcare professionals have walked off the job at Mass General Brigham (MGB) in Boston in what the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) is calling the largest strike of nurses and healthcare professionals in the state’s history.

The action began at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, July 8, after MGB executives refused to move from their bargaining positions despite months of negotiations and last-minute compromise offers from nurses and clinicians represented by the MNA.

Who is striking and why

The strike involves two groups. Around 4,000 nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital launched a one-day strike beginning 7 a.m. on July 8, running through to 6:59 a.m. on July 9, with picket lines set up across multiple hospital sites including the main campus at 75 Francis Street in Boston and several satellite locations in Chestnut Hill, Foxborough, and Jamaica Plain.

Some 450 MGB Home Care clinicians, including registered nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech language pathologists, social workers, and dieticians, are also on strike, with their action running longer, through to July 14 at locations across Beverly, Braintree, Chelsea, Newton, and Somerville.

The MNA said both groups had been negotiating for fair contracts for months (in the case of MGB Home Care clinicians, more than a year), focused on investment in patient care, staffing standards, and conditions that would help recruit and retain frontline caregivers. In the days leading up to the strike, the union said MGB told nurses and clinicians it would not move off its bargaining positions, even after the caregivers offered to compromise.

A lockout follows the strike

The situation is set to escalate further. Following the Brigham nurses’ one-day strike, MGB has imposed a four-day lockout running from 7 a.m. on July 9 to 6:59 a.m. on July 13. This means that nurses who are willing to return to work will be barred from doing so by the hospital itself. Picketing will continue at the main hospital campus around the clock during the lockout period.

What nurses say is at stake

Kelly Morgan, a labour and delivery nurse and Chair of the BWH MNA Bargaining Committee, was direct about how the union sees the situation. “MGB executives are forcing 4,000 Brigham nurses to strike by choosing corporate profits over patient care. MGB has spent years disrespecting nurses and ignoring our safety concerns. Executives have refused for months to invest in nurses, instead making proposals that would make it harder to recruit and retain nurses. We are standing up for our patients, our profession, and the future of care at the Brigham.”

For the home care clinicians, the stakes are equally concrete. Shannon Viera, Chair of the MGB Home Care MNA Bargaining Committee, described the real-world consequences of inadequate staffing and conditions in home care settings. “MGB Home Care clinicians provide complex care that allows patients to remain safely in their homes and avoid unnecessary hospitalizations. We have spent more than a year trying to negotiate a fair first contract. We did not want to strike, but we need enforceable standards and meaningful improvements so clinicians can continue providing the quality care our patients deserve.”

A systemic problem of healthcare worker burnout

The strike at MGB is part of a wider pattern of healthcare worker unrest across the United States, where staffing shortages, burnout, and the pressure of post-pandemic recovery have pushed nurses and other frontline workers to breaking point at institutions that have simultaneously reported strong financial results. The tension between hospital system revenues and frontline worker conditions has become one of the defining labour disputes of the mid-2020s.

Massachusetts Governor Healey had convened representatives from MGB nurses and clinicians at the State House in the days leading up to the strike in an attempt to avert the action, but the talks did not produce a breakthrough before the 7 a.m. deadline on Wednesday.

With a four-day lockout now in effect following the one-day strike, the disruption to one of America’s most prominent academic medical centres looks set to continue next week, and with MGB’s bargaining position apparently unchanged, a resolution does not appear imminent.