Hospital Workers To End Strike Tonight — But L+M Still Plans To Lock Them Out

At 11 p.m. this evening, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital's striking nurses and healthcare technicians will end their four-day work stoppage in protest of unfair labor practices and will attempt to return to their duties. Whether hospital administrators will open the doors remains to be seen.

So far, L+M Hospital administration has pledged to follow through with its plan to lock out the nearly 800 striking workers, an action which the AFT healthcare workers union claims is illegal but which hospital officials say is necessary to maintain a continuum of patient care in the face of threats of future work stoppages.

"The Hospital was glad to have another chance to talk face to face. As we’ve said, we stand ready to meet at the request of the federal mediator," hospital spokesman Michael O'Farrell said. "We remain focused on providing quality patient care and look forward to productive dialogue Tuesday. Regarding (Friday night), the union left us no choice but to impose the lockout based on their threats of intermittent strikes."

L+M Hospital has been using replacement workers to cover shifts during the four day strike that began on Wednesday, Nov. 27. According to the union, the hospital continues to advertise for replacement workers and had increased the hourly rates to entice people to cross the picket line.  

Almost 750 striking hospital workers, which include members of the AFT Local 5049's registered nurses (RNs) and AFT Local 5051's licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and healthcare technicians, their friends, family, and elected officials held a rally yesterday in front of at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital.   

“What ought to be happening now is talks,” said U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who was one of several elected officials who attended the rally, echoing the same message issued by both Connecticut House Speaker Rep. Brendan Sharkey and Gov. Dannel Malloy at the start of the strike.  

Originally, both parties were scheduled to meet to resume talks on Tuesday, December 3. However, the federal mediator managed to bring hospital administrators and union representatives back to the negotiating table on November 29.  

"As we have said in the past, we are ready to talk at any time, and we hope that tonight’s discussions will be productive," L+M Hospital spokesman Michael O'Farrell said in a press release yesterday afternoon.

"We had been urging that both sides meet sooner than the Tuesday session agreed to on the first day of the strike," said AFT Union Spokesman Matt O'Connor. "The corporation made it a condition to limit this next session to our combined unions' negotiating committee members, a term we agreed to for this time only in order to get talks underway again. We intend to make future sessions open to the full membership, as we did for talks before the strike action began."

The negotiations, which began at 8 p.m. on Friday, ended four hours later with no resolution in sight, although both sides did have an opportunity to clarify their positions. According to the union, representatives of L&M Corp. asked for more time to review the union's last counter-proposal resolving issues related to shifting health services away from the hospital.

O'Connor said it was essentially the same proposal that the union had presented last Tuesday but hospital representatives said they hadn't fully understood it and needed more time to review what the union was proposing. Accordingly, the next negotiation session will be held on its originally scheduled date of Tuesday, November 3. 

"We hope this was a step in the right direction—and not simply a dog and pony show in response to pressure from the community and elected officials to get back to the table," said O'Connor. "In that spirit, we asked the corp. to drop their threat to lockout their nurses and caregivers when they plan to return to the hospital to care for their patients Saturday night at 11:00 p.m. Reps for the corporation refused and stated their intention to follow-through with their threat to prevent their employees from returning to work.

"A lockout will help no one, and will hurt everyone," O'Connor stated. "The community, and especially the patients and their families served by L&M Hospital, deserve to have this matter settled sooner rather than later. The time is now for the corp. to do what it takes to resolve this dispute so our skilled caregivers can get back to doing what they do best."

O'Farrell also voiced hope that the strike would be resolved quickly.

"Last night was a civil conversation that we hope will continue Tuesday," he said. "A great deal of focus (Friday) night was on reaching a better understanding of the last offers on the table from both sides."