Nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital voted Sept. 24 to authorize an open-ended strike against Mass General Brigham by a margin the Massachusetts Nurses Association calls the largest in state history — 2,986 to 215, or 93% in favor, among roughly 4,000 unionized nurses. It’s the second strike vote at the Brigham this year, and this time there’s no end date attached.
From a one-day walkout to an open-ended threat
Brigham nurses already staged what MNA called the largest healthcare worker strike in Massachusetts history on July 8 and 9 — a one-day action that ended without a deal. Two months of bargaining since then have gone nowhere: the union says MGB hasn’t held a negotiating session since August and won’t move off its position. Gov. Maura Healey publicly urged both sides back to the table on Sept. 8. Instead, MNA leadership scheduled Wednesday’s vote, and members authorized their bargaining committee to call a strike with no fixed length whenever it decides to — not another single day the hospital can staff around.
“At this point in the fight, it’s become much more than a wage fight,” MNA spokesperson Joe Markman said. “It’s about MGB trying to break the union.” The union’s proposal calls for roughly $90 million a year in raises plus an $11.2 million ratification bonus, along with limits on temporary-nurse reliance, fairer float-unit pay and affordable health insurance. MGB has said the package isn’t “financially sustainable and not supported by the current labor market.” No strike date has been set; state law requires the union to give 10 days’ notice before any walkout begins.
The number nurses keep pointing to
Mass General Brigham posted a $2.39 billion profit in fiscal 2025 on $22.8 billion in operating revenue — the largest surplus of any hospital system in the state, according to state data. Nurses and their union have repeatedly cited that figure as the backdrop to a dispute where MGB says nurses’ wage demands are unaffordable. MGB, for its part, notes that meeting the union’s full ask would push Brigham nursing labor costs toward $1 billion a year and says that scale of increase isn’t sustainable regardless of the system’s overall finances. Neither side’s numbers are in dispute; the argument is over what they mean.
The vote itself doesn’t shut anything down. It hands the MNA’s elected bargaining committee at the Brigham the authority to call an open-ended strike whenever members decide the moment is right, without going back to the floor for another vote first. That’s a meaningfully different posture than July’s single-day walkout, which both sides could plan around and absorb. An indefinite strike is harder for a hospital to staff through with travel nurses and harder to simply wait out, which is exactly the point of banking this kind of authorization rather than announcing a strike date outright.
A one-day strike is something a hospital can plan around — bring in travelers, cancel elective cases, ride it out. An open-ended authorization is a different kind of leverage, because the hospital doesn’t know when it ends, which is exactly why nurses only reach for it when they think management is stalling on purpose. Whether or not you work anywhere near Boston, this is worth watching: it’s a live test of how far a 93% mandate actually moves a system posting a multibillion-dollar surplus, and every union bargaining table in the country is going to be citing whatever happens here for the next contract fight.