Julie Pinkham is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), a position she has held since December 2000. Prior to that, she served in various positions for the MNA since 1989, including Associate Director/Field Rep, Labor Educator and as Director of the MNA Labor Relations Program. Pinkham holds a BSN from Vanderbilt University, a Master of Science in Health Care Administration from Simmons College and a Master of Science in Labor and Industrial Relations from University of Rhode Island. Between 1982 and 1996 Pinkham worked as an RN in various staff nurse positions at University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital including, Oncology and Palliative Care and Surgical Trauma ICU and Burn Trauma ICU.
The MNA is a multipurpose professional association founded in 1903 that serves as the professional voice for all registered nurses in the Commonwealth. In addition to being the professional association for RNs, and the third largest state nurses association in the nation, the MNA is the largest union of registered nurses and health care professionals in the Commonwealth, representing more than 23,000 nurses and health professionals working in 85 health care facilities. Since taking over as Executive Director, the MNA has achieved some of the greatest success in its history. Under Pinkham’s guidance, the MNA has helped lead the fight to address a growing crisis in nursing, including developing an agenda to deal with issues impacting the working conditions of nurses and the safety of patients amidst the widespread consolidation and corporatization of health care.
This has included leading historic strikes and legislative fights to prohibit mandatory overtime as an alternative to appropriate staffing for Massachusetts hospitals, the creation of a Taft-Hartley pension fund for MNA members and a long-standing campaign to set safe patient limits for nurses in Massachusetts hospitals, which in 2014 resulted in the passage of landmark legislation setting safe patient limits in all Massachusetts hospital ICUs. MNA led a statewide ballot initiative to provide limits in the other areas of the hospital, while the initiative was not passed, the issue has gained widespread attention and the MNA continues to pursue safe limits for Massachusetts patients.
Pinkham has also been instrumental in developing a strong regional voice for nurses, by founding the Northeast Nurses Association, which was created to provide affiliate members union organizing support to nurses and allied health care workers throughout the Northeast United States. NENA has organized over 4,000 nurses and allied health care workers in the last three years. In 2011 her expertise was called upon by a sister organization, the New York State Nurses Association, with over 34,000 members as they transitioned their organization over the course of a year through new leadership with Pinkham’s guidance. In 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, MNA pivoted quickly to ensure that the nurses and health care professionals on the frontlines had a voice to protect their practice and their patients.
When it quickly became clear neither the hospitals nor the state or federal governments were prepared or capable of maintaining proper infectious disease standards in health care settings, Pinkham worked with the MNA members and staff setting up a donation website and matching funds to quickly procure as much PPE as possible to distribute to those clinicians on the frontlines putting themselves at risk to care for their patients. Over a half a million dollars of PPE was vetted, procured, and distributed within 90 days. And in 2021-2022, Julie worked with the nurses of St. Vincent Hospital to wage the longest nurses strike in state history, and the longest nurses strike nationally in over 15 years, a strike for safer staffing that lasted 301 days, and ended with a victory by the nurses against one of the largest for-profit health care companies in the nation. The strike galvanized nurses throughout the nation and energized the entire labor movement, as the nurses showed the power of union solidarity during one of the most challenging periods in recent history due to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic and the unique challenges faced by essential workers on the frontlines. MNA continues to amplify the voice of the professionals on the frontline and in doing so ensure the best practice and best care for the patients.