Nurses at ProMedica Hickman Hospital ratify new contract
ADRIAN TWP. — Nurses at ProMedica Charles and Virginia Hickman Hospital have ratified a new contract with ProMedica.
The Michigan Nurses Association local at the hospital voted "overwhelmingly" Wednesday to ratify the three-year contract, a news release from the MNA said. The union and ProMedica reached a tentative agreement last week.
“This is union democracy in action,” Tracy Webb, a critical care nurse and president of the MNA local at Hickman Hospital, said in a news release. “ProMedica’s administration tried to tell us what had to be in our contract, but they underestimated the resolve of MNA RNs. Nurses understood that our community needed better than what ProMedica was trying to force us to take. We knew that we couldn’t give up and couldn’t give in. Because we remained united as a union, we were able to win more and protect our future. I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish together.”
“ProMedica Hickman Hospital is pleased that the MNA membership has ratified the contract," ProMedica said in an emailed statement. "The contract underscores our commitment to providing all our employees with fair and market-competitive wages and benefits. It also reflects our long-standing commitment to supporting and promoting a culture of high-quality care and patient safety — both being areas in which the hospital has been regularly recognized as an industry leader.”
When the tentative agreement was announced, the MNA said it did not include a two-tier retirement system that ProMedica had sought and included improved wages so that the new wage scale would reach over $50 per hour by the end of the contract. On Wednesday, the MNA said the contract also includes:
Establishment of an equitable system to place nurses on the wage scale by years of licensure.
Language to limit the cost of health care premiums paid by nurses.
Stronger protections limiting the use of mandatory overtime.
Establishment of basic health and safety language including the contractual right to personal protective equipment and protections against violence in the workplace.
Additional language to assure that assignment despite objection forms to document unsafe staffing submitted by nurses will be properly addressed.
ProMedica and the MNA reached the new contract after 98% the union membership voted Jan. 11 to give their bargaining team approval to call a strike and after the MNA conducted a "practice strike" on Jan. 30 across M-52 from the hospital. According to the MNA, the strike authorization vote came after ProMedica made what it called its “best and final” offer, and the practice strike happened after ProMedica made a “last, best, and final offer” that had the two-tier retirement proposal and did not include wages above the $50/hour.
Subscribe Now: For all the latest local developments, breaking news, and high school and college sports content.
The tentative agreement was reached when negotiations resumed Jan. 31.
“I don’t think ProMedica had ever seen anything like the dedication to a fair contract that MNA nurses at our hospital were demonstrating,” registered nurse Sue McGaffigan said in the release. “Something clearly clicked for the hospital’s administration when they saw almost every single RN who works at our facility either wearing red on the floors or picketing outside the hospital in the slush. Our solidarity made all the difference in the world.”
The new contract takes effect immediately, the MNA said. About 140 nurses are covered under the agreement.
— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Nurses at ProMedica Hickman Hospital in Adrian ratify new contract
