ProMedica Hickman Hospital nurses stage 'practice strike' over contract negotiations
RAISIN TWP. — With contract talks between ProMedica and the nurses’ union at Hickman Hospital due to resume Wednesday, the union members staged what they called a “practice strike” Tuesday afternoon.
More than 60 off-duty nurses and their supporters stood across M-52 from the hospital for about an hour, holding signs and chanting slogans declaring their displeasure at the state of contract negotiations with ProMedica.
The contract between the Michigan Nurses Association local at Hickman Hospital and ProMedica expired Dec. 31. The nurses have been working under the terms of the expired contract. Negotiations for a new contract started in September. The local voted Jan. 16 to give its negotiating team the ability to call a strike and filed unfair labor practice charges against the Toledo-based health care system that owns the hospital. The MNA alleges that ProMedica, the Toledo-based health care system that owns Hickman Hospital, has engaged in bad faith bargaining in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
ProMedica has said Hickman Hospital leadership has been negotiating in good faith with the MNA.
“ProMedica Hickman Hospital leaders have been participating in bargaining discussions with MNA for several months,” ProMedica said in an emailed statement. “Last week, the nonprofit hospital made modifications to the already fair and market-competitive proposal it provided on Jan. 9. We had hoped the MNA bargaining team would share the modified proposal with its members before it expired on Jan. 29.
“Our nonprofit hospital has engaged in good-faith bargaining and responded to several data requests. We have provided the financial information the law requires us to provide, given our bargaining position. MNA also has access to our publicly reported financial information.”
The MNA referred to some of that publicly available financial information in news releases announcing the practice strike. It noted that ProMedica’s Form 990 for 2022, the most recently available, reported that CEO Randy Oostra was paid more than $5.4 million.
Nonprofit organizations file 990s with the IRS annually.
Nurses who spoke from prepared statements at the practice strike Tuesday suggested that ProMedica should look at executive compensation rather than nurses’ pay for cost savings.
“I implore you to stop looking to the bedside nurse for budget cuts to increase profit,” Chelsea Howard, an obstetrics nurse at Hickman, said Tuesday. “You can look to your CEOs and their millions if you need budget cuts instead of nurses.”
“We will not let executives making millions of dollars try to divide us with a two-tier retirement system and wages that will not recruit new nurses and retain experienced nurses,” said MNA local President Tracy Webb, a critical care nurse at Hickman. “We demand a fair contract for all nurses, those currently working here now and any who may come to work with us in the future.”
Nurses referred to their working conditions, particularly during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sue McGaffigan, who has worked for 42 years between Bixby Hospital and Hickman Hospital, said the nurses became “almost like war buddies” through the pandemic.
“We saw and went through things that we cannot fully explain to those not there. We were there for each other because no one else was. Administration was rarely seen on the floor during this time. Although I did get a free piece of pizza.”
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Nurses said they want language in the new contract to ensure safe staffing levels.
“To this day they refuse to even address those in any significant way,” Webb said. “I can tell you personally that I have had three patients when I should have had one. But even still, they tell us we don’t need contract language ensuring safe staffing, that we can trust them to do it. To that we say unequivocally that this is our community, our hospital, and we care too much for our patients to leave it up to the kind of people who seem to care more about profits than peoples’ lives. How much profit does a nonprofit need?”
Webb said the MNA emailed ProMedica’s latest offer to its membership to review. She said the attendance at the practice strike was evidence about how the union members felt about the offer.
“To ProMedica executives my message is this: I hope you see what I’m seeing today,” Webb said. “I hope you understand that nurses are united and our demands are clear: an end to the unfair labor practices, an end to divide and conquer tactics like two-tier retirement, and fair wages so we can safely staff our hospital.”
“ProMedica Hickman Hospital leaders are continuing discussions with the bargaining team this week in hopes that they will re-evaluate all of the information we have provided,” ProMedica said in its statement. “We have invested in Lenawee County, opening a brand new hospital a few years ago, and we are continuing to invest by providing a fair and market-competitive offer for our nurses.”
Should the Hickman nurses call for a strike, they would need to give ProMedica 10 days’ notice.
“If a strike were to occur, our nonprofit hospital would work diligently to ensure that we continue to provide safe, high-quality care to the community,” ProMedica said.
— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: ProMedica Hickman Hospital nurses stage 'practice strike'
