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December 18, 2003NURSES STRIKE: New bill focuses on strike issuesIt would force mediation after 90 daysByRecord-Eagle staff writer PETOSKEY - A situation like the 13-month Northern Michigan Hospital nurses strike couldn't happen, if a bill recently introduced in Congress became law. The bill, called the Employee Free Choice Act, would automatically recognize a union's certification if more than 50 percent of workers signed cards for it, avoiding drawn-out and often contentious elections. It also would force mediation if no agreement was reached on a first labor contract after 90 days - and binding arbitration if no agreement was reached 30 days after mediators started. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. , and was recently sent to House and Senate committees. "The odds are against us" in a Republican-dominated Congress, Miller said. The proposed law would be effective in breaking the impasse at NMH where the hospital has refused binding arbitration, said David Bonior, a former U.S. House minority whip now a professor of labor studies at Wayne State University. Nothing short of overwhelming community pressure or a change in federal labor law appears likely to move hospital management from its position, he said. "The current labor law is a disaster. It's been turned into a very unfair document that's being abused throughout the country, " he said. No negotiations on a contract have occurred since Nov. 14, 2000, when about half of NMH's then-470 nurses represented by Teamsters Local 106 went on strike. Paul Kersey, an analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, opposes the bill, saying that binding arbitration is "a slow, messy and expensive process." Teamsters attorney Ted Iorio said the bill could gain momentum as situations like the NMH strike drag on. "The Civil Rights Act didn't get passed the first time," he said. "This is getting it out there, and the public will become more aware."
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