UMass Memorial labor negotiator is leaving; Nurses union is relieved at McMahon departure.

Byline: Shaun Sutner

WORCESTER - UMass Memorial Medical Center's chief labor official, who masterminded a tough negotiating stance during contract talks with the nurses union, has resigned, leaving union officials relieved.

UMass Memorial President and CEO John G. O'Brien announced the resignation of John P. McMahon, former senior vice president for human resources, Feb. 15 in an internal memorandum obtained by the Telegram & Gazette.

Mr. McMahon will start a new job March 12 as senior vice president of corporate human resources for Arrow Electronics, a 12,000-employee, publicly traded company in Melville, N.Y.

After six months of strained talks over a new three-year pact, the medical center's 840 University Campus nurses walked off the job Oct. 25.

The strike ended up lasting only five hours, even as 175 replacement nurses brought in for the strike went on duty at 6 a.m. The hospital also hired a special crisis communication expert in the latter stages of the negotiations and ran a series of unusually hard-hitting newspaper ads on the union's demands.

After an overnight bargaining session, negotiators for the Massachusetts Nurses Association and the hospital agreed on a deal that gave the nurses raises of 19 percent to 24 percent over three years.

Now, union leaders say they saw Mr. McMahon as an unyielding negotiator who they found tough to deal with.

"Our dealings with him were a low point in our dealings with the institution," said Judy Locke, vice chairman of the union's bargaining unit at the hospital. "We had positive relations with them in the past, but this last period was ugly.

"We're trying to put this behind us and cultivate better relationships," she continued. "He really did come across as someone who was very authoritative and was not the sort of person we were used to dealing with."

Hired in 2005 after stints as a senior personnel executive at several high-tech companies, Mr. McMahon put in place a more business-oriented human resources strategy at the hospital, Mr. O'Brien said in his memo of last month.

"John also led us through significant labor challenges and negotiations, which resulted in three-year agreements with our largest unions," Mr. O'Brien wrote. "These agreements will ensure a more competitive posture for our institution in the long term."

While hospital officials sought to portray Mr. McMahon's resignation as a positive career move for him, his departure likely is a signal that the medical center wants to take a softer approach to its activist union, said Gary Chaison, a professor of labor relations at Clark University.

While unions generally elect their contract negotiators, private companies and institutions hire and fire theirs based on their performance, Mr. Chaison said.

"I think this is a conciliatory gesture," he said. "If they don't do the job management wants them to do they either let them go or don't rehire them. If management wants to get a new tone and start off with a fresh approach, this is a step they can take."

Mark L. Shelton, a spokesman for the hospital, said Mr. McMahon has family in the New York area, where he worked before.

Contact Shaun Sutner by e-mail at [e-mail].