Nearly 800 frontline Butler Hospital staff begin bargaining with Care New England to confront Rhode Island’s behavioral and mental healthcare crisis
    Nearly 800 frontline Butler Hospital staff begin bargaining with Care New England to confront Rhode Island’s behavioral and mental healthcare crisis
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    Nearly 800 frontline Butler Hospital staff begin bargaining with Care New England to confront Rhode Island’s behavioral and mental healthcare crisis

    12 March 2025

    Competitive wages, better staffing and safer working conditions are among workers’ contract demands

    Providence - Nearly 800 frontline Butler Hospital staff who are members of SEIU 1199NE have begun bargaining with Care New England to settle a fair union contract that provides competitive rates to recruit and retain urgently needed staff to meet the ongoing mental, behavioral and substance abuse health crisis in Rhode Island as well as paid training, increased job safety measures and improved benefits.

    In Rhode Island our behavioral health system is broken. Butler Hospital is the backbone of psychiatric care in Rhode Island, but we are crumbling under pressure. For years, our hospital-wide staffing levels have remained at an all-time low. While the cost of living has gone up at an astronomical rate, the wages offered at Care New England have remained stagnant. Many of our staff do not receive a livable wage and are going to other local institutions or taking short rides over the border to Massachusetts and Connecticut to make a fair wage.

    Dawn Williams, Registered Nurse in Lippit 2, Intensive Treatment Unit

    Butler Hospital is the leading mental health facility in the region, providing a wide array of inpatient and outpatient mental, behavioral health and substance abuse services to adolescent, adult and geriatric populations that can necessitate weeks of in-patient stays. But low wages, lack of training and unsafe working conditions are creating a staffing crisis that impacts the quality of care patients receive. Since the pandemic, a surging demand for mental and substance abuse services pushed the system to a breaking point. Depression among adults in the United States tripled in early 2020 — and worsened into 2021, impacting 1 in every 3 Americans. More Rhode Islanders died of accidental drug overdoses in 2021 than any other year on record previously. In 2022, more than one in four (28.7%) children ages three to 17 had a mental, emotional, or behavioral health challenge in Rhode Island. But more than half (59%) of RI children ages three to 17 who needed mental health treatment or counseling had a problem obtaining needed care in 2022.

    Our patients need us now more than ever but our system is failing them. Butler is the crossroads of mental and behavioral health, substance abuse and homelessness but we are bursting at the seams and working shorter now than ever. Our patients are coming in more acutely but too often we can’t adequately meet their needs due to short staffing and lack of available beds. We urgently need a much more robust treatment system with better wages and increased funding to expand services and beds to those in crisis and who need long term treatment.

    Ian Lacombe, a Registered Nurse in the ER who has worked at Butler Hospital for over 20 years.

    Butler Hospital currently has 108 open positions. Wages do not adequately compensate staff for the demands of the job; a high degree of burnout and emotional exhaustion is driving staff to less stressful positions elsewhere. Nearly 60% of Butler workers say in a recent survey they have struggled to afford both food and housing costs with the average Rhode Island home valued at $470,369, up 7.1% over the past year.

    SEIU 1199NE members at Butler Hospital are among 3,000 other Care New England union employees who have been engaged in bargaining this year. 55 Physical and Occupational Therapist Assistants who work for the Visiting Nurses Association are also engaged in bargaining at this time. Late last year, over 2,000 Women & Infants Hospital staff settled a new two and a half year contract that includes 13% wage increases, protections to pension and healthcare benefits and landmark expansion of the union training program.
    source: SEIU 1199NE survey of Butler Hospital workers

    source: SEIU 1199NE survey of Butler Hospital workers

    source: SEIU 1199NE survey of Butler Hospital workers

    source: SEIU 1199NE survey of Butler Hospital workers

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    District 1199 SEIU New England represents 29,000 health care and service workers in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Southeastern Massachusetts. In Rhode Island, 1199 SEIU NE represents nearly 5,000 members. 1199 SEIU NE is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – a union of over 2 million members across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. SEIU has been a national leader in pushing the growing Fight for $15 and a Union movement.