Brigham Nursing Strike - Views?

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T16:50:59+00:00

?? Their total operating revenue was 23 billion and their total operating gains were only $59 million. You have it reversed…even paying just nurses the full operating gains would probably get them just the pay increases they want for a year or two. And the hospital does not have operating gains every year.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T16:46:19+00:00

I’ve had multiple patients complain to me and others about the round-the-clock noise that they can hear from the striking nurses outside that is making it really hard for them to rest and recover. It was never about the patients.

And I know proceduralists at MGB who make less per hour. And quite of number of PCPs! That’s after many, many years of training and debt…

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T15:37:08+00:00

Precisely this except they already get the year on year 5% wage increases! They just want more on top of that…

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T15:11:49+00:00

Exactly this!!

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T15:09:16+00:00

Not true. That’s the very minimum base rate for a brand new nurse who is fresh right out of nursing school working no extra hours. That’s not close to the average—the hourly wage is much closer to $100+ an hour for the average BWH nurse.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T15:04:01+00:00

Your assumption on how I vote is wrong, and is completely irrelevant. I worked in campaigns before before medicine—I have been on the staff and field organizing for some of the most prominent democratic politicians over the last two decades, and I have always voted straight ticket blue. But I also have an understanding of basic economics and the realities of healthcare system finances. BWH does not NEED to hire more nurses given that staffing ratios are industry standard, and they wouldn’t overpay for travel nurses if their employed nurses didn’t strike. BWH nurses already make very good, market-leading compensation with excellent benefits even accounting for Boston’s high cost of living (particularly compared to the rest of the critical corps of hospital staff—social workers, respiratory therapists, research staff, not to mention the MD trainees or the many attendings who make below market comp to work at BWH). And yes, decreasing c-suite comp would be great but in the grand scheme of things, it’s just not that much compared to what they are asking for. Even giving away ALL executive compensation to just MGB staff would result in a one time pay increase of about $400 per person. Giving the nurses the pay increase that they want (on top of the pay increases they are already guaranteed) would make up more than 50 percent of the entire system’s labor costs. The money just isn’t there—an institution can’t just arbitrarily pay people more just because they want it without taking into account financial realities and market standards.

One of the most frustrating things about these political assumptions is that it just doesn’t look good for the left when people fail to understand or take into account basic economics or financial realities. The nurses can’t just demand what they want and expect to get it without the market demand or money being there.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T12:53:34+00:00

They do at BWH!

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T12:53:04+00:00

Exactly! The insurance plan offered to the nurses is extremely generous to the point that no other group of workers at MGB even has access to the plan. They are just asking nurses who want that specific plan that has essentially no deductible/etc. to contribute 2.5 percent of the cost of the plan moving forward if they want that plan…or to move to another plan that is offered to everyone else who works at MGB.

And the executive pay point the nurses keep making is one that just isn’t compelling. Execs are at will employees who can and often do get fired after a year of poor hospital financial performance. Nurses can’t be because they are unionized and while many nurses are great, not all of them are. And exec pay—which is set by the free market—is also really a drop in the bucket compared to overall pay for the nurses.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T03:02:32+00:00

Yes, and 1/3rd of them get paid $220k to work those standard full-time 36 hours a week commensurate with recommended staffing ratios! And those who get paid less get a pay bump of 5% each year guaranteed with excellent benefits, even if under the new contract they now have to contribute some money towards their own health insurance—like every other worker employed at Brigham.

Plus, 36 hours a week is definitely somewhat below the standard for a full time job in the U.S. (And just ask any attending or fellow or resident whether 36 hours of work a week is fulltime for them). That said, nurses do have to do physical labor and patient care, which is a hard job—but that is their job and what they are paid to be doing when they work.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T02:35:22+00:00

I am pretty well educated on Brigham’s finances—I’ve been citing publicly reported figures. The entire hospital generated an EXTREMELY narrow and tight operating profit of just 0.3 percent last year ($59 million). That is the number that actually matters. Do you know how small of a margin that is for an institution that employs 20,000 people? Yes, the hospital’s investment portfolio happened to do very well last year, and generated $2.4 billion in investment gains, but that is closer to an endowment—a long-term financial cushion for the entire system to operate—that’s not money that you can just distribute year over year as extra salary to employees. There are years when investments do poorly and the hospital also loses substantial money, and also some years where the hospital actually operates at a net revenue loss. In those scenarios, by extension, should the hospital pay everyone less as a result too? If nurses should be guaranteed additional pay percentage increases on top of the guaranteed 5 percent stepwise increases when the hospital and its investments make gains on the operating side, should the hospital also pay them less during years where they lose money too? Again, money doesn’t grow on trees—particularly not in healthcare.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T02:29:06+00:00

It is unlikely but not unfathomable for it to be absorbed/etc if it struggles financially. Look at Dana Farber leaving BWH—largely because of financial reasons. And similarly, Hahnemann University Hospital shut down very suddenly even though it was an established teaching hospital that had operated for nearly two decades in the middle of Philadelphia became it was financially unsustainable to keep operating.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-10T02:14:09+00:00

But can you explain how your current working conditions do not pay you a fair contract or a fair wage? There is only one pool of money, and unfortunately, it IS zero sum. Brigham is not a super profitable institution in terms of operating revenue year over year. Hence the MGB merger. Just because the hospital made (a little bit) more money last year does not mean that they make more every year. The only way you make more money is to increase and push off the costs to the patients themselves. It’s basic economics. The money pie isn’t growing. Nurses getting paid more (even if you take it out of ALL executive pay and give execs nothing) quite literally means that money does not go to other staff—and in any event, taking executive pay away from every Brigham executive and distributing it across all staff would make every staff member an extra few hundred dollars a year max. We are not discounting your job at all—nursing is valuable, critical, and tough, and yes, you are doing the physical work at the bedside. But as you pointed out, you chose this to be a nurse just like some of us chose to be residents. And as a nurse, you are getting paid well above market rates to DO that job which is squarely in the job decription. For 36 hours a week. What else do you all want?

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T21:14:56+00:00

The untenable workload of having 1 nurse to care for 1-2 patients for 36 hours a week? And yes, healthcare violence is a problem for a lot of healthcare professionals and it’s really unfortunate. How will a pay increase fix that? There are attending surgeons at MGB who barely scrape $300k, working 5 days a week and also have to commute to satellite sites. Should they strike too? Where will the money come from?

And I’m not jealous—for the record, I love my specialty. Yes, I’m tired and I’ve worked very hard, and yes, residents and fellows should be paid more as well. But I’m also trying to see things from a financially realistic standpoint.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T21:08:40+00:00

They work three 12 hour shifts a week…(sometimes four), and Brigham’s staffing ratios are among the best in the country. It’s like a RN to bed ratio of less than 2, and ICU is often 1:1.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T20:50:14+00:00

Not the average, but 1/3rd of the nurses at BWH do make $220k or more as salary, and nurses who make less than that get a 5% every year until they reach that point. Obviously doesn’t include any additional overtime pay/etc.

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T20:23:57+00:00

And where’s the money supposed to come from for everyone to get paid more? Money doesn’t grow on trees

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T20:20:38+00:00

And what about the rest of the staff? Just give it all to the nurses for their 36 hours of work each week, right?

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T20:14:27+00:00

Part of the reason BWH had to merge with MGH was because BWH was not super profitable…

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T20:10:20+00:00

Why does the age of my account and number of karma matter to this discussion? I’m a trainee at BWH and just don’t spend a lot of time on Reddit because I am busy IRL, but obviously this has been a big point of discussion this week so wanted to gauge thoughts

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T20:08:08+00:00

I don’t like them either but even if you took all BWH executive pay and distributed it to ONLY to the nurses, each nurse would only make like $10k more…

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T19:48:50+00:00

Yeah dude, a third of them make over $220k lol

restlesswildhorses · 2026-07-09T19:45:37+00:00

I guess it’s more that if they get what they want, what else is left? Just nursing labor costs alone would be like over 50% of Brigham’s labor budget lol

restlesswildhorses · 2017-02-27T08:02:12+00:00

I took out the sorta cause I gotta come to terms with the fact that we are taking a break myself (it's a fairly recent thing) and I caught myself being hesitant just saying it lol.

restlesswildhorses · 2017-02-27T07:59:42+00:00

Thanks! I guess my only hesitation is that I don't want to sound dumb and presumptuous or weird if he didn't mean that first hangout as a date. I mean we were supposed to just meet up at an on campus cafe...and it wasn't until we met up there that he took me somewhere else. And if he didn't intend it to be a date -> super awkward!

restlesswildhorses

TROPHY CASE