WORCESTER – United States Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. along with Rep. Jim McGovern and Rep. Lori Trahan led the Massachusetts congressional delegation in a letter to Tenet Healthcare urging its CEO, Dr. Saum Sutaria, to come to Worcester.
Tenet Healthcare owns and operates Saint Vincent Hospital. The letter urges Sutaria to intervene to settle the work stoppage between the Hospital and the Massachusetts Nurses Association [MNA].”
“We are alarmed and dismayed by Tenet’s efforts to prolong this crisis with their demand that nurses be denied a return to the positions they held, many of them for decades, prior to the strike. Tenet’s approach violates long accepted standards for the conclusion of a work stoppage and jeopardizes the safety of the patients who will be subject to care from more inexperienced replacement staff,” the lawmakers wrote. “Of more concern is Tenet’s decision to purposefully close desperately needed beds and eliminate services as a punitive ploy to force the nurses to end their strike, using patients and our communities as pawns in their anti-union strategy.”
Lawmakers join Mayor Joe Petty, who called on Sutaria to come to Worcester three weeks ago.
Other signatories to the letter included Rep. Stephen Lynch, Rep. Katherine Clark, Rep. Seth Moulton, Rep. Jake Auchinloss, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Rep. William Keating and Rep. Richard Neal.
The full text of the letter is below.
Dear Dr. Sutaria:,
We are writing to lend our voices to those of Mayor Joseph M. Petty and other public officials and community leaders who have expressed concerns regarding Tenet Health’s failure to provide an equitable settlement to the ongoing nurses strike. The loss of beds at St. Vincent Hospital – a decision by Tenet Health’s management – has only exacerbated this crisis.
We are alarmed and dismayed by Tenet’s efforts to prolong this crisis with their demand that nurses be denied a return to the positions they held, many of them for decades, prior to the strike. Tenet’s approach violates long accepted standards for the conclusion of a work stoppage and
jeopardizes the safety of the patients who will be subject to care from more inexperienced replacement staff. Of more concern is Tenet’s decision to purposefully close desperately needed beds and eliminate services as a punitive ploy to force the nurses to end their strike, using patients and our communities as pawns in their anti-union strategy.We value the role our nurses have played and continue to play in keeping our communities safe, and will not tolerate any attempt to punish them for exercising their lawful rights to advocate for their patients under federal labor law. We further oppose any effort to use this situation as a launching pad for nationwide attacks on long held labor standards. For the safety of our community, we join Mayor Petty in calling upon you, Saum Sutaria, as Tenet Health’s CEO, to come to Worcester to end this crisis as soon as possible.
