BMC Contract Scores Big On Salary, Parking & Hours

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January 2007

Residents at Boston Medical Center won annual 3.5% salary increases and successfully fought back a large proposed increase in parking fees in their recent contract negotiations.

It took fifteen evening negotiating sessions over four months – not to mention three months of preparation. All that hard work paid off on October 31, 2006, however, when CIR negotiating team members at Boston Medical Center saw their new contract overwhelmingly ratified by their colleagues.

The agreement features 3.5% salary increases in each of the contract’s three years, boosts to the Professional Education Allowance of $100 in 2006 and another $100 in 2008, a reduction in the increase to health insurance premiums and a small increase in monthly parking (the Hospital had initially pushed for a 100% increase). Another important benefit – extra pay for residents who are required to do extra on-call for an absent colleague -- was also preserved and expanded to include residents who take call from home.

“Our greatest accomplishment,” said Dr. Susie Kim, a PGY 3 Internal Medicine resident and co-president of BMC’s CIR chapter, “was pushing for the 16 consecutive hours worked limit and post-call taxi program. We hammered away at them for weeks. We didn’t give up. We kept bringing in all the literature [showing that 24-30 hour shifts weren’t safe]. We talked about how other hospitals were moving in the direction of limiting work hours and providing a taxi service to get house officers home safely post-call, so why not us?”

In the final agreement, the BMC agreed to pilot a post-call taxi service and to continue discussing work flow and work hour limits. The largest residency program, Internal Medicine, has also begun a complete revamping of their ward rotations, with an eye towards a 16 hour limit.