The tentative agreement, which covers 1,200 unionized nurses at Tufts and its Floating Hospital for Children, came after a negotiating session at Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s office, according to the MNA. The mayor had stepped in to help both sides reach a settlement.
Provisions of the tentative agreement include across-the-board pay increases totaling 6 percent over the life of the contract and moves nurses who are now in the defined benefit pension plan to a 403(b) retirement savings plan, both sides said. Other provisions cited include “language guaranteeing that key units/floors will have a charge nurse without an initial patient assignment” as well as a 5 percent step added to the wage scale over the life of the contract.
Tufts and the MNA have been in contract negotiations since April 2016. Negotiations were contentious at times, resulting in a one-day strike in July . In total, both sides participated in 47 bargaining sessions before reaching Monday’s tentative agreement.
That agreement, effective through September 2021, must still be ratified by nurses before it is official. A ratification vote is slated Jan. 3.
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