Thousands of Mass General Brigham doctors hold Labor Day rally amid first contract negotiation

Mass General Brigham doctors showed out this Labor Day amid contentious negotiations for their first contract since unionizing over a year ago.

“We want to do our work,” said Brigham and Women’s Hospital pathology resident Lee Richman. “We love our work. We’re passionate about the care we provide. And at this point the barrier to that is management not giving us a serious fair contract proposal, multiple times now. We’re waiting for them to step up and do the right thing.”

Resident physicians and fellows in the Mass General Brigham system rallied at two locations, Cardinal Cushing Memorial Park near MGH and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, early Monday afternoon. The union members rallied outside the hospitals to call for better wages and benefits in a new contract proposal.

Scores of MGB doctors joined the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) union in June of 2023 and have been negotiating their first contract with the hospital for nearly a year, Richman estimated.

The union stated the doctors are fighting for “improved training conditions that directly affect patient care, critically needed improvements to their healthcare plan, access to reproductive technologies and a livable wage,” among other priorities.

CIR called the hospital management’s last wage proposal “insulting,” noting the proposed 2% raise for each year of the contract is up slightly from their previous 1.5% offer. Richman said the negotiations have come to “tentative agreements” on issues like security, but the union has been “stonewalled” on larger benefit and pay issues.

“We’re getting tired of getting unserious responses back with minimal movement,” said Richman. “We’re not unreasonable. We work 80-hour weeks, seven-day weeks. We’re just asking to basically be able to pay our rent, have families and have quality of life.”