Greenfield City Council Adopts Section 19, Backing Union Rights in Health Insurance Shift

GREENFIELD -- April 15, 2026, Greenfield City Council voted 12-1 to adopt MGL Chapter 32B Section 19, setting the city on a collective-bargaining path to transition employee health insurance from Health New England to the state's Group Insurance Commission by January 2027. The vote came after the council unanimously tabled Sections 21 through 23, which would have allowed the city to implement changes through a binding arbitration process that unions warned would strip bargaining rights. Health New England's 19.3 percent rate increase for FY27 represents roughly a $2 million cost the mayor said the city "simply cannot afford." Councilor Lora Bottomley cast the lone no vote, arguing the expert consensus, from the Mass Municipal Association, city attorneys, and the GIC itself, favored the 21-through-23 route as the only reliable way to meet a July 1 GIC notification deadline for a January 2027 transition. The council also unanimously approved a resolution supporting nurses at Baystate Franklin Medical Center, whose union held a strike vote the previous day after 18 bargaining sessions; a nurse on the bargaining committee told the council that the hospital currently pays new graduate nurses 10 to 23 percent less than comparable western Massachusetts facilities.