“Pittsfield — An organized group of healthcare professionals with longstanding grievances against Berkshire Health Systems held a forum Tuesday night (September 19), airing in graphic detail what they say are chronic understaffing problems that have caused patient neglect at Berkshire Medical Center.

About 100 people attended the forum at the First United Methodist Church organized by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which, at 23,000 members, is the largest union of registered nurses in the state and the one that represents BMC nurses.

BHS holdings also include Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington. However, Fairview nurses are represented by a different union, which reached an agreement with BHS on a new contract late last year, a BHS spokesman told the Edge.

With a potential strike looming, moderator Liz Recko-Morrison told the audience, ‘We think the community should be part of that discussion.’ The union, she said, has been ‘bargaining in good faith for over a year,’ while BHS management has dragged its feet.

Union members said hospital representatives had been invited but declined to attend the event, which was sponsored by a variety of labor-oriented groups including the Berkshire Democratic Brigades, the Berkshire Central Labor Council, Indivisible Pittsfield and Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.”

“When staff nurse Mary Havlicek Cornacchia reported to TuftsMedical Center at 7 a.m. on July 12, it was not for the early morning shift. Rather, Cornacchia, along with nearly 1,200 of the Tufts Medical Center nursing staff, was joined by community members in what would be the first nurses’ strike in the city of Boston in over 30 years, and the largest nurses’ strike to ever occur in the state, according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), the union representing the Tufts nurses.

The strike came after the nurses attempted to parse out the details of their contract with Tufts Medical Center and make addendums to the existing agreement.

‘Staffing, wages and our retirement plans are the three big sticking points,’ Cornacchia, who is also the co-chair of the MNA bargaining unit at Tufts Medical Center, explained.

According to David Schildmeier, the director of public communications at MNA, the amount of participation from the nurses was unprecedented.”