4,000 Brigham Nurses Set to Begin an Open-Ended Strike October 14

Image source: WGBH

Part of Nurse.org’s Nurse Strike Intelligence data series, built on a proprietary database tracking a decade of U.S. registered-nurse strikes (2017–2026).

Nurses at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston have set a date for an open-ended strike. On October 2, the Massachusetts Nurses Association filed the legally required 10-day notice, scheduling roughly 4,000 nurses to walk off the job beginning October 14, 2026. The union says it would be the largest open-ended registered-nurse strike in state history.

It is a sharp escalation. In July, the same nurses held a one-day strike, the first in the hospital’s history, and were then locked out for four additional days before returning without a contract. This time there is no end date. The union says the walkout will continue until Brigham reaches an agreement.

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The July 8 action was a one-day awareness strike. The October walkout is open-ended, a different and far more disruptive kind of pressure for nurses, patients, and the hospital alike. Nurses on an open-ended strike forgo their paychecks and, at Brigham, lose the hospital’s contribution to their health insurance premiums for the duration.

Nurses voted to authorize the action on September 24 by 93 percent, 2,986 to 215, which the union says is the most nurses ever to back a strike authorization in Massachusetts. The bargaining committee then set the October 14 date after talks remained stalled.

The core issues have not changed much since the summer: limits on the hospital’s use of temporary travel nurses, affordable health insurance with meaningful plan choice, fair pay for nurses required to float between units, and a cost-of-living raise.

The union has framed the walkout as an unfair labor practice strike, citing federal labor complaints it has filed against the hospital since July.

“Brigham nurses have made clear that we are prepared to stay on strike for as long as it takes to win a contract that protects our patients and respects the nurses who care for them,” said Kelly Morgan, a labor and delivery nurse and chair of the Brigham bargaining committee.

The union has also pointed to the health system’s finances, citing Mass General Brigham’s reported $2.39 billion in profit in its latest fiscal year, along with the CEO’s multimillion-dollar compensation, as evidence that the system can afford its proposal.

Mass General Brigham disputes the union’s framing and says it has bargained in good faith across at least 25 sessions since last November. The system says Brigham nurses are already among the highest-paid nurses locally, statewide, and nationally, with compensation in the top 10 percent of the acute-care market, and that nurse base wages have risen an average of 55 percent over the past five fiscal years.

The hospital puts the cost of the union’s current proposal at roughly $90 million in additional annual wages plus an $11.2 million ratification bonus, which it says would bring total nursing labor costs at the Brigham to nearly $1 billion a year. “While the hospital does not want a strike, we are fully prepared to manage through one, regardless of its duration,” MGB spokesperson Jessica Pastore said, adding that most of the temporary nurses who worked during the July strike have agreed to return if needed.

Most nurse strikes are short. Across the 110 confirmed U.S. nurse walkouts we track from 2017 through 2026, the single most common form is the one-day strike. An open-ended strike is rare precisely because it is so costly for everyone involved, which is part of what makes the Brigham action significant.

The union itself has drawn the comparison that matters most. The last time the Massachusetts Nurses Association authorized an open-ended strike was at Tenet Healthcare’s Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester in 2021. That walkout lasted 301 days, the longest nurses strike in Massachusetts history and, until recently, the longest single-hospital nurse strike in our database. If the Brigham nurses walk out October 14 and stay out, the scale of the action, roughly 4,000 nurses at a flagship hospital, would place it among the most significant strikes in the country.

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Brigham is the largest of a cluster of actions that has re-formed this fall. July was the summer’s peak, with Brigham’s own record one-day strike and a run of walkouts in a single week. Activity quieted in August, then picked back up: in September, nurses held a coordinated one-day strike across four Prime Healthcare hospitals in three states, and nurses at Olympia Fields Hospital near Chicago walked out in a first-contract fight.

In Boston, two separate unions at Boston Medical Center voted to authorize three-day strikes, nearly 2,000 nurses under 1199SEIU and 160 more under the MNA, and nurses at McLaren Lapeer in Michigan authorized one as well. One labor researcher counted three Massachusetts nurse strike-authorization votes since June alone. Brigham is the action most likely to define the moment.

For nurses watching this from outside Boston, this fight may feel familiar. The issues at the center of the Brigham negotiations, including floating, staffing, benefits, and wages that keep pace with the cost of living, are conversations happening in hospitals across the country.

And this isn’t just about one hospital or one contract. The debate over how often nurses are floated, how temporary staff are used, and whether compensation reflects what is being asked of nurses raises bigger questions about what it takes to keep experienced nurses at the bedside.

As a nurse, I think that’s the part worth paying attention to. Nurses aren’t just asking what they’re being paid. They’re asking whether the working conditions they’re being asked to accept are sustainable enough to make them want to stay.

Under federal law, the 10-day notice gives the hospital time to arrange for patient care and gives both sides a window to keep talking. A tentative agreement before October 14 would call off the walkout, and Brigham has reached deadline deals before: in 2016, the union settled the day before a planned strike. For now, the date is set, and roughly 4,000 nurses are preparing to walk.

To follow this and every active nurse strike, see our 2026 nurse strikes list.

Related Nurse Strike Intelligence Analysis

🤔 An open-ended strike means no paychecks and no end date until there’s a deal. If your unit were facing that choice, how long could you hold out, and what would make it worth it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

About the data: This article draws on the Nurse Strike Intelligence database, Nurse.org’s original record of 110 confirmed U.S. registered-nurse walkouts from 2017 through 2026. The Brigham and Women’s action described here is scheduled but had not begun as of publication; a contract agreement before October 14 would prevent it. Financial and compensation figures are attributed to the party that stated them (the Massachusetts Nurses Association or Mass General Brigham) and are each side’s characterization, not independent findings. Each factual claim is tied to a primary source, including the MNA, Mass General Brigham, and established news coverage.