“We’re severely disappointed that management did not come to the table with a serious proposal to address our concerns.”

Your Bargaining Team: Brett Moore, Cindy Franck, Kimberly Fraser McMillan, Michael Nord, Tammy Olson, and Janice Jones.

Our Bargaining Team met with management again on April 27 to continue negotiations for the St. Michael Medical Center RN contract. After working late into the afternoon, we were unable to reach an agreement with management because of serious differences of opinion on what St. Michael Medical Center needs to address the current staffing crisis. 

Management sent over two economic proposals during this meeting, which only included minor changes such as increasing their wage proposal by just 2.5% over the life of the contract when compared to their April 5 proposal. We are extremely frustrated that management continues to make wage proposals that would keep our wages below what nurses at St. Joseph Medical Center are paid and then somehow expect that nurses at St. Michael Medical Center would be happy to accept their offer.

Management also continued to reject our proposal to create safe staffing standards in every department, claiming that staffing ratios wouldn’t help address our staffing crisis. They took particular issue with our proposal’s hourly premium that would be paid to nurses as a penalty when staffed outside of safe staffing standards, which was included as an enforcement measure to encourage compliance. 

Management instead countered with a new staffing proposal that outlined “staffing and scheduling principles” that they promised to adhere to. They claimed their proposal outlined a collaborative effort that would create space to talk more about possible solutions to the crisis, which they believe is better than the Union’s well defined and enforceable staffing ratios. 

Our Bargaining Team pointed out that their proposal does not include any firm deadlines, no substantive guarantees, and no efficient enforcement mechanism if they fail to follow through on their promises. And quite frankly, we don’t trust management to follow through. We will continue to review their proposal and determine if we could counter with changes that would appease our concerns, but the bottom line is that we need staffing language that commits to more than “the employer will make every reasonable effort” to address the staffing crisis. 

Our Bargaining Team presented the results of the strike pledge card as evidence that nurses are not satisfied with the progress of negotiations and management was clearly surprised that a majority of nurses signed the card. With over 435 nurses signing the strike pledge card, members have made clear that what’s on the table is unacceptable and we’re ready to do whatever is necessary to win a fair contract. 

Now is the time to put our words into action! After months of bargaining, our Bargaining Team has announced that nurses at St. Michael Medical Center will be holding an informational picket on Thursday, May 26 from 3:00PM to 5:00PM. We invite bargaining unit nurses, their families, and any member of the community to RSVP for the event.  

We are scheduled to meet with the Employer again on May 3 and 6 with our contract scheduled to expire after April 30. We are working with the employer on a possible one-month extension of our contract that would cover nurses as we continue negotiations. 

Contract Action Team (CAT) Meeting

You don’t want to miss our next meeting as our Bargaining Team is hosting picket captain training to prepare for our upcoming informational picket! We’ll also spend time talking about what to expect as we move closer to announcing a strike vote.

Wednesday, May 4

9:00AM & 6:00PM

https://zoom.us/join

Contact your Bargaining Team or Union Rep for call-in details. Details will be also emailed out.