Butler Hospital, union avert strike

PROVIDENCE – Butler Hospital and the New England Healthcare Employees Union / SEIU, District 1199, today announced a tentative contract.
The deal averts a strike by union workers, who had been slated to walk out tomorrow. Details of the new agreement were not yet available.
District 1199 represents about 300 Butler employees, whose old contract expired March 31. A week later, the union gave 10-day notice of its intention to strike.
The new contract – negotiated with the help of a labor mediator – still must be approved by union members. But meanwhile, Butler emphasized, “the hospital is fully staffed and open to care for patients in its inpatient, partial hospital and outpatient programs.”
Butler Hospital is Rhode Island’s only private, nonprofit psychiatric and substance-abuse hospital for patients of all ages.
Butler Hospital – a founding member of the nonprofit Care New England Health System – is a research and teaching hospital affiliated with The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. To learn more, visit www.carenewengland.org or www.butler.org.