§ 9A — Grievances or disputes between health care facilities and nurses

Section 9A. (a) In the event of the existence of a grievance or a dispute between a health care facility or a charitable home for the aged and an organization designated or selected as the exclusive representative of any nurse or nonprofessional employee of such facility or of such home for the purposes of collective bargaining in accordance with section five, and if such grievance or dispute has not been settled by collective bargaining after reasonable effort so to do by either party, and if there is no collective bargaining agreement in force between the parties, or such an agreement is in force but it contains no provision to submit the current grievance or dispute, as the case may be, to arbitration, the procedures provided by chapter one hundred and fifty C shall be available, on application of an aggrieved party, to determine the controversy as though the parties had negotiated a collective bargaining agreement containing a provision as described in section one of said chapter one hundred and fifty C to submit to arbitration and such agreement were then in force; provided, however, that the procedures provided by said chapter one hundred and fifty C shall not be available to assist or require arbitration of any grievance or dispute involving a health care facility owned and operated by the commonwealth or a political subdivision thereof; and provided, further, that in the case of a grievance or a dispute involving any health care facility not owned and operated by the commonwealth or a political subdivision thereof or involving a charitable home for the aged it shall not be a ground for refusing to grant an order for arbitration under paragraph (a) of section two of said chapter one hundred and fifty C, or for granting an application for stay of an arbitration proceeding under paragraph (b) of said section, or for vacating an award under clause (5) of paragraph (a) of section eleven of said chapter one hundred and fifty C, that there is no agreement to arbitrate.(b) As used in this section the word ''grievance'' shall mean any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to the interpretation, application or breach of the provisions of an existing collective bargaining agreement between a health care facility or charitable home for the aged and any of its nurse or nonprofessional employees or their representatives; the word ''dispute'' shall mean all other controversies, claims or disputes between a health care facility or charitable home for the aged and any of its nurse or nonprofessional employees, or their representatives, concerning rates of pay, hours or other terms or conditions of employment in such facility or home, including, but not limited to, controversies, claims or disputes arising in the course of negotiation, fixing, maintaining, changing or arranging any such terms or conditions.