After their 18th bargaining session on Tuesday, nurses in Alma say MyMichigan's latest offer on a new union contract is still not good enough.
A MyMichigan spokesperson said because the nurses' union declined to make a counter proposal, the hospital was “forced to put its last, best and final offer on the table." The nurses have been without contract since February.
Sarah Webber, a registered nurse and member of bargaining team, said the offer made to the nurses on Sept. 1 was similar to the offer that prompted a three-day strike earlier this summer.
“We're all getting really fed up and tired of getting met with offers that are just not suitable for the next three years,” Webber said.
The local union’s president, Shenan Shinabarger, told WCMU in August that the proposed wage increases don’t keep up with inflation.
“We’d essentially be forced to take a pay cut,” Shinabarger said. “Gas costs us more, food costs us more, insurance costs us more.”
The MyMichiagn spokesperson said that the hospital worked hard to meet the nurses priorities and included “economic enhancements” in the contract offered to the union on Tuesday.
“MyMichigan believes its nurses will see the substantial economic benefit of this final offer and hopes that it will be ratified so that the nurses can receive the immediate raises that they deserve,” a spokesperson from MyMichiagn health wrote in a statement.
Webber said the nurses are “not for this,” and did not make a tentative agreement vote during Tuesday's bargaining session.
“We're bringing it to our members to let them see and make a decision on if this is suitable,” Webber said.
Members of the Michigan Nurses Association in Alma will vote on MyMichigan's current proposal next Tuesday.
If the union members vote it down, Webber said the nurses plan to picket outside of the hospital on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
“Our nurses are very upset with MyMichigan,” Webber said. “We see all these other facilities getting contracts and deals that are offering far better wage compensations and supporting details to their contract and they don't have to argue with their employer nowhere near as hard as what we have to.”
The nurses union has filed eight different complaints with the National Relations Board alleging that hospital administrators have retaliated against union members during the negotiation process.
MyMichigan has not commented on those allegations.
Webber said the union hopes MyMichigan will reevaluate their final offer if the union members vote down the latest proposal.
WCMU's Rural Life and Agriculture reporting is made possible through the generous support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
