Federal complaint indicates MGB improperly blocked neonatal intensive care nurses from participating with colleagues at the outset of their landmark strike on July 8

/PRNewswire/ -- The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) has submitted an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Brigham and Women's Hospital, indicating the hospital improperly blocked neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurses from exercising their federally protected right to join the landmark Brigham nurses' strike on July 8, 2026.

The complaint indicates that after the strike began at 7:00 a.m. on July 8, hospital management declined to permit NICU nurses to exit the facility and participate in the strike alongside their colleagues.

The unfair labor practice complaint indicates:

"On July 8, 2026, the employer interfered with, restrained, and/or coerced bargaining unit nurses in its neonatal intensive care unit by refusing to release them from duty at 7:00 a.m. in line with their right to strike at a one-day strike called by the Charging Party to begin at 7:00 a.m."

NICU nurses indicated that hospital management informed them they could not depart due to worries regarding patient safety. The event highlighted one of the key issues Brigham nurses emphasized during the contract dispute: Mass General Brigham's choice to compel a strike and then enforce a four-day lockout while depending on temporary replacement nurses placed patients at needless risk.

"The hospital cannot deny nurses their legal right to strike and then defend it by citing patient safety worries of its own creation," said Kelly Morgan, RN, Chair of the Brigham MNA Bargaining Committee. "Brigham nurses cautioned for months that substituting experienced permanent nurses with temporary staff would endanger patient care. MGB pursued that approach regardless and then stopped NICU nurses from exercising their federally protected rights."

The worries nurses indicated the hospital expressed about NICU staffing and patient safety mirrored concerns voiced publicly by families with infants receiving care in the unit. Parents expressed concerns in multiple media interviews before and during the strike about the possible effect that substituting experienced NICU nurses could have on some of the hospital's most medically vulnerable patients.

"Brigham NICU nurses provide care for some of the tiniest and most critically ill infants in the world," said Katie Nicoloro, a NICU nurse and member of the Brigham MNA Bargaining Committee. "If MGB thought it was unsafe to permit experienced NICU nurses to depart at the start of the strike, it prompts serious questions about the hospital's choice to depend on replacement nurses throughout the lockout. This only underscores why we persist in advocating for contract terms that emphasize experienced permanent nurses and continuity of patient care."

The unfair labor practice complaint arrives just days after Brigham nurses resumed bargaining following the largest nurse strike and lockout in Massachusetts history. During bargaining on July 21, nurses again urged MGB to discuss meaningful restrictions on the hospital's use of temporary nurses, arguing that continuity of care delivered by experienced permanent nurses is vital to safeguarding patients. MGB declined to discuss.

Learn more at www.massnurses.org/MGB.

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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 26,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association