BANGOR, Maine — Unionized nurses employed at Eastern Maine Medical Center ratified a three-year contract on Tuesday that hospital administrators had called their “last, best, final” offer.
The contract gives the nurses at least a 7 percent raise over the life of the contract.
“It provides for a 3 percent pay increase immediately for the nurses, and a 2 percent increase next year,” followed by another 2 percent raise for year three, Greg Howat, the hospital’s chief negotiator and vice president of human resources, said Wednesday. “Within a two-year period they will be receiving more than a 7 percent pay increase when you compound” the three increases.
A press release from the nurses union said the contract includes “wage increases between 7-13 percent and health benefit security language that will keep experienced nurses at the bedside.”
Nurses on a higher pay step, which are established based on experience, will get more of a raise, Vanessa Sylvester, spokeswoman for the Maine State Nurses Association, explained.
About 850 registered nurses employed at EMMC and represented by the Maine State Nurses Association, National Nurses Organizing Committee, and National Nurses United had the opportunity to vote on the contract Tuesday.
The contract offer was accepted by 56 percent of the union members, according to a post on the Maine State Nurses Association’s Facebook page and on the union’s Twitter account.
“The majority has voted to ratify the contract,” Judy Brown, president of the nurses union at EMMC, said by email early Wednesday morning. “The team really appreciated the nurses coming out to vote in large numbers.”
EMMC nurse Debbie Richards said she and other nurses are happy with results of the vote.
“We’re very pleased,” she said.
The next step is for the final contract offer to be presented to EMMC’s board of trustees for approval, which is expected to happen in the next day or two, Howat said.
“We’re confident they will approve it,” he said.
“This agreement is a result of compromise from both sides,” Howat said in a statement. “We’re pleased to reach an agreement that is in the best interest of our patients, employees, and the communities we serve.”
Joanne Mitchell of Orrington, a 15-year veteran nurse at EMMC, was one of the last nurses to cast her ballot. She said she braved Tuesday night’s lightning storm for only one reason.
Staffing issues are her main concern, Mitchell said. “Eastern Maine is not willing to really budge on our staffing and it’s a big problem.
“It’s not about money,” she added. “It’s about staffing and it’s all we care about. It’s all we cared about the last time.”
The voting took place at the gazebo at the Bangor Motor Inn and Conference Center on Hogan Road.
“We’ve had a good turnout,” Jen Sedgwick, chief steward for the Maine State Nurses Association’s Unit 1, the bargaining unit for the region’s largest hospital, said just before voting ended at 8:30 p.m. She declined to say how many nurses voted.
The new contract also has language that requires the hospital to install a metal detector in the emergency room, according to Cokie Giles, a nurse and member of National Nurses United.
“Security in the emergency department was one of our key issues in bargaining,” she said. “Having a metal detector installed is one very important step that EMMC needed to take to ensure the highest level of safety and security.”
Union members ratified a one-year contract last May after eight months of often contentious negotiations that included a strike, picketing, a lockout and threats of a second strike and lockout. That contract expired earlier this month, which is when nurses and their supporters conducted an informational picket near EMMC.
While nursing transfers among departments, charge nurse workloads and health benefits were addressed in the agreement, staffing levels remained a major sticking point.
“According to a survey of our membership, one of the top issues that needed to be addressed was continued problems with staffing,” Brown recently posted on the unit’s Facebook page. “Management was adamant that adding strict patient/nurse staffing ratios was a deal breaker. We decided to be creative and we floated the idea of scheduling a resource nurse daily on the inpatient units.”
Resource nurses already are in place in many units and the hospital has created rapid response teams to beef up staffing where needed, hospitals officials said. The hospital also added security cameras and alert buttons, a computerized door-locking system and additional security.
Staffing levels do not belong in contracts, EMMC officials say, and would hurt the hospital’s ability to adapt to fluctuating patient volumes and finances.
Hospital officials did heard the nurses’ concerns, Howat said. “We’ve responded [with additional wording in the contract to] strengthen the ways nurses have input,” he said.
“With a three-year contract in hand, we look forward to focusing our collective attention on innovations and improvements that continue to ensure our patients and their families receive the highest quality, compassionate care they’ve come to know and expect from EMMC,” Howat said.
BDN reporter Dawn Gagnon contributed to this story.
Unions are wonderful and protect workers, allowing them a fair chance at a decent living wage. Unfortunately for the USA, the unions have been hammered by hatred, fed by the propaganda of big corporations. The gullible people who follow the GOP have forgotten how important unions were in securing important protections. Those protections are all but dead. The 40 hour work week, once sufficient to feed a family, has been replaced by three part-time jobs that take 80 hours and provide no health insurance, pension, etc.
I guess we are really stupid enough to have forgotten the benefits of unions, and stupid enough to beg at the feet of corporations for whatever tidbit or scrap of a job they might give–until it goes to China.
When my grandfather and father were Union officials, they were fighting for a safe and reasonable workplace. They fought to make enough to feed their kids and have a vacation once a year. They fought for fair wages and got them. Now Unions take $15 a week to spread their own propaganda and make political donations to people and political organizations that their members don’t approve of. To see you making this comment after this Union, whose members are probably some of the best paid in the area if not the State are getting a 7% raise is unbelievable.
Have you noticed that some groceries have doubled and then tripled within the last year or two? Most in the last couple of decades.
Gas prices, rent, and housing? While wages are stagnant or actually going backwards?
When nurses make a mistake , they can kill someone. Can you possible imagine what it would be like with mandatory overtime without paying more …just straight pay. Then your chances, since you are already tired double and triple for making mistakes.
Republicans in congress tried to cut out overtime for nurses, fire fighters and policemen. Wanted them to be payed by reimbursing the time at the employer’s discretion.
Some people are only about money. They are not human.
Yes, I have noticed the increases in the costs of living. Thanks to Obama, that’s what happens when you print money.
Many jobs can kill someone. Truck Drivers carrying 80,000 lbs on the roads everyday can easily kill someone. Bus drivers, Cops, Fire fighters, flaggers, nearly every industrial job, construction workers etc etc. THey can all kill someone. Even when they don’t make mistakes. Yes I can imagine working mandatory doubles. We average about two a week where I work. If you happen to be working on a weekend, your basically guaranteed three in a row if not more.
I know of no one seriously advocating straight pay on OT. I’m very conservative, I am a card carrying union member, I have never heard of the accusations you are making about republicans. IF they were actually doing such things,I PERSONALLY would contribute to the candidates who opposed such legislation. I don’t need a Union to TAKE my pay and make contributions on my behalf.
My family will get 7% more than they did before this contract but I stand by my statements.
Oh and, I’m very familiar with with working “conditions” at the hospital.
Clinton left a surplus in the budget. When g bush left office, WE were bankrupt.
Don’t tell me, you get your information off of fox news.
And now we’ve had three years of hope and change, he tripled the national debt.
Don’t tell me, you get your information off of CNN.
You need help.
There was a time in American history when unions did, in fact, provide the impetus for reform and workers’rights. However, to say that today’s employees are forced to work for “whatever tidbit or scrap of a job” is just ludicrous. The days of union advocacy for an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work are over. They have been replaced by outlandish demands for such things as lifetime healthcare benefits, a grievance resolution system which too often makes it impossible for an employer to fire bad emplyees, and oversight of local union activities by a national leadership which has more interest in feathering its own nest than being a voice for rank and file members. One need look no further than Detroit to see the consequence of out-of-control unions. The automakers were able to absorb escalating union pay and benefits when the economy was strong. However, as the economy weakened, sales plummeted, and the U.S. economy circled the drain, the unions refused to give an inch. The end result has been well documented. It’s all well and good that the nurses (and I am a retired nurse) got a pay increase but it’s the patient and insurance companies who will ultimately bear the cost. Hospitals all over the nation are closing their doors because they can no longer provide care in the face dwindling reimbursement and increasing operating costs (which includes staff pay and benefits). There is a reason jobs are moving offshore and it isn’t totally the fault of corporations. I am most assuredly not gullible and don’t just blindly “follow” the GOP or any other political organization. I’m very well versed in the history of the union movement- my father was a union offical for many years. However, even he came to see how detrimental the union can be to business.
Smart to accept the offer, otherwise no union.
“Its not about the money” she says……….yeah okay.
And a 7% pay increase over three years? regardless of your performance?
typical union disconnect with the rest of the world. Newsflash, the rest of the
country is not getting pay increases while everyone else suffers.
Newsflash: Everyone else is not suffering. Health insurance companies are enjoying record profits at the expense of consumers. They are but one example of the rich getting richer.
The real question is why people like you assume everyone should suffer because you do. These EMMC nurses don’t. They stand up for themselves. As a nurse at a non-union hospital, I thank them for benefitting everyone in our profession as a result.
Truth is it’s cheaper for the hospital to give them a raise than to do the other things the nurses wanted. Now they are even more the highest paid nurses in the state, with an increasingly difficult job with more outlandish expectations.
Union leadership will never bargain for less pay or a pay freeze to make their members jobs easier. Union leaders are the eldest nurses, at the max on the pay-scale, with much to gain by these raises.
Most of the nurses I know would like to just keep working. The raise is good enough, because they know the better staffing will never come. The vote reflects this.
Nurses in ME are paid way less than the national average. I would doubt that EMMC pays that much more than anybody else.
Here is another example of the Rich getting Richer. The unions. My father worked for a large Union out of Boston for years and he made a pretty penny. He also got 5 weeks of vacations, paid “conference” at Mt. Washington Hotel where he and my mother would get wined and dined for three days EVERY YEAR. He’d go to Vegas, L.A. etc etc, all at the union dues payers expense. He was a good man who worked hard (which couldn’t be said for most of his coworkers) but even he would admit, it was excessive. They are a lot like Jesse Jackson. There probably was a good use from them at some point in our history, but now they are often useless fear mongers squeezing cash out anything they can get their hands on.
It really bothers you that your father got 5 weeks of paid vacation? That is about what most industrialized countries are getting these days. Of course, the US is unable to keep up because WE have wars going on in about 5 countries now. Over half of our budget goes to the military. WE should have universal health care like the other industrialized countries…then corporations and businesses could better afford 5 weeks of vacation for their employees. And maybe some laws with teeth in them so our corporations would actually do something for their employees.
It bothers me that hard working, blue-collar workers paid for a bunch of Union thugs to spend their money lavishly. Its the Union mentality. “the company is screwing us, the company owes us. ” It’s very similar to the welfare mentality and the “me” generation mentality.
Wars are part of life. I’m looking forward to Obama keeping his promise about pulling us out of all the conflicts. Have been for three years, I’m sure it’ll happen soon.
YOU can have your universal healthcare. Don’t ask me to pay for it. What made all these countries industrialized? Unions? No. Companies? Yes.
Corporations do a lot. They pay. They provide health care. They provide job security. And they don’t take from everyone else to provide these services. And when the benefits become too small, they can’t get anyone to work for them. THey either go out of business or adjust. It’s a time tested formula.
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” – J.F. Kennedy
Yes, I’m sure NO one else in the country is getting a raise. RIGHT!
May 1933, Hitler abolished unions.
All i wanna know is how are they going to pay for these raises? I will tell ya how, they are going to up the cost of ever single test, procedure and exam. Walking into the ER will now cost someone 200.00 instead of 150.00. While you may deserve a raise, many people in Maine are not recieving one and havent recieved one in a few years. That is what the recession does, and people already cannot afford medical procedures, so while you nurses are winning, its the average citizen trying to survive that loses.
The article doesn’t say whether the labor union voted to accept a one year contract or a three year contract offer from EMMC. Which is it?
Read the first line of the article. “BANGOR, Maine — Unionized nurses employed at Eastern Maine Medical Center ratified a three-year contract on Tuesday that hospital administrators had called their “last, best, final” offer.”
My comment was posted *before* the article and headline were changed.
Usually when the first thing someone says is “it’s not about the money,” that means it usually is. Interested to see what financial perks were in the contract. Will the nurses at EMMC be the first group in a few years here in Bangor to get their cost of living increase? Tune in to find out!
Corporations are holding onto mind boggling amounts of cash…CEO’s bonuses could pay a lot of wages. WE are in another gilded age. And the republicans and conservatives are still complaining when anybody makes over minimum wage.
A recent study has found that it is impossible to work a 40 hour work week at minimum wage….. and rent a two bedroom apt. (I’ll try and find the link. ) But that isn’t good enough for our conservatives.
Banks are bailed out with billions of dollars of tax payer’s money to pay off their gambling debts. Even banks overseas…that is fine for tax payers to fund.
But to do something for a poor person, give them something like medical care…look at the ding bats coming out of the wood work whooping and hollering.
Same with nurses belonging to a union and getting a raise. Whooping and hollering.
Unfortunately (for them ) EMHS has given themselves a bad name in the last few years.
Qualified Doctors are not only gone from Acadia Hospital , they are now leaving EMMC to go to better places such as St. Josephs (St. Josephs are earning National Accolades in employee appreciation and , thusly ,getting better employee performance) .
Me thinks EMHS is “cleaning house” to keep the wages for the Front-Line Workers lower , with fewer benefits (through new employees with no vested service) so that their Administration can continue to earn the 6 figure salaries they feel they earn sitting at their desk,behind closed doors ??
And those new graduate nurses are a lot cheaper…and they need guidance from experienced nurses. When they are all gone , the mistakes and deaths sky rocket. But you would never hear a complaint from our CEOs and conservative friends about that. Unless, it was them or their family.
Why do I get the creepy feeling that EMMC is on the verge of getting their accreditation renewed and they needed a stable nursing component to qualify ? JCAHCO is crucial to a hospital’s insurance coverage. JCAHCO looks at the nursing standard’s, their patient ratio coverage and the nurse’s Continuing Education program, among other thing’s, to determine accreditation compliance. The insurance company’s look at those JCAHCO results to determine premium rate’s. A nursing strike, right in the middle of a re-accreditation cycle, would not exactly be helpful, now would it ?
The hospital got what it wanted.
JCAHCO doesn’t exist by that name anymore. That information is outdated. It’s The Joint Commission these days, or TJC.
“Resource nurses already are in place in many units and the hospital has created rapid response teams to beef up staffing where needed, hospitals officials said. ” This is not true. Rapid response teams are available to respond to code situations, not to beef up staffing on the units.
Good “CAN DO” news. Give us more of it, please. We all need it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO0euzURgRI&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL7E58A23F863A6F10
This is just a question…..if you paid the dues and believed in what you felt was the right thing to do, be it work or anything else for that matter, why would it be a “good” turn out instead of everyone showing up? If someone is requiring a payment from me for what I am supposed to believe in, I will show up for a vote that affects my daily living.
When you are in the hospital and waiting for a nurse to answer your call bell or laying in the ED hallway and no hallway nurse is scheduled that day due to not enough staffing, let me know how that works out for you. Nurses are willing to strike over better staffing but if all you think they care about is the money, hope you can wait until someone can answer your needs. They are doing what is best for the PATIENT. Hope your next hospital visit goes well.
Good they deserve it. Now we have EMMC nurses getting raises, BIW employees getting raises. When are State employees gonna get a raise. Going on 4 years now without one. Governor are you listening? Probably not as you’d rather give out the State surpluses to the wealthy taxpayers.
Unions kill labor
May, 1933, Hitler abolished all unions. Murdered the leaders. You are not the only one who hates the unions.
Oh yes, everyone who has a problem with unions is like Hitler. Quite a rational argument there…
unfortunatly the nurse title depicts the image of a wealthy income and sitting behind a desk offering warm blankets and gingerale. This however is not the case up to eight patients does sound like much but that is only until you acount for the amount of responsibility that goes into EACH AND EVERY pt encounter. The next time your hospitalized and see a nurse exausted and stressed out with little to no help, ask yourself if you realy want them delivering your care. Unions in a nursing setting are not ment to pad the wallets of the nurses whithin the union its a means of having a bigger voice to express concerns. The more resources availible and the better staffing isnt so that nurses on that floor can surf facebook or gossip, its so that they can provide the level of quality care that their patients deserve! As far as the downtrotting on the union there is much that goes on behind the scenes on a week to week basis that increases the quality and safety in the hospital setting. The pay increase that this union is getting will be lucky to keep pace with the rate of inflation; I think it would be safe to say that gas alone will be more than 7% more than it is now by the end of the contract.
Judy Brown, as a nurse of 40 years (candy striper at EMH in 1976-CNA-LPN-RN-BC) you and your money grabbing nurses disgust me. Raises based on longevity, not merit. Have worked beside and supervised many an EMH nurse and am proud to say ALL the care my family recieves is at the hands of the dedicated St Josephs staff.
The decision regarding the medal detector was made weeks and weeks ago so I find it very hard to believe that this had nothing to do with money. Not that I blame the nurses for wanting more, we all do, many of us non nursing staff have had a pay freeze since last year because there is no more money to give.
BangorBully is a Bully!!!! (and probably a scab too!!!!)
I am proud to be part of a union and hope that I can help in getting others to join freely if they want and to bargain for fair wages.