An end to workplace violence, short staffing and low wages: Hundreds of Butler Hospital staff hold informational picket

Providence - Today, hundreds of frontline Butler Hospital staff who are members of SEIU 1199NE held an informational picket outside their hospital calling for an end to the workplace violence epidemic driven by short staffing and wages that do not keep pace with other mental health providers in the state. 

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 is creating a staffing crisis that impacts the quality of care patients receive.
 
Butler Hospital currently has 116 open positions (up from 108 just last month). 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. The starting wage for a Mental Health Workers at Butler is just $18.27. 60% of Butler workers say in a recent survey they have struggled to afford both food and housing costs and the median price of a single-family home in Rhode Island in October, 2024 rose 11.5% from a year earlier to $485,000.

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. 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.

SEIU 1199NE members at Butler Hospital began bargaining with Care New England last month 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. They 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.