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November 8, 2003Striking nurse makes decision to return to NMH obstetrics unit49 striking nurses have crossed the lineSecond in a three-part seriesBy Record-Eagle staff writer EAST JORDAN -- Taking to the picket line against Northern Michigan Hospital last Nov. 14 wasn't easy for obstetrics nurse Julia Doebel. "It was, bar none, the most difficult decision I've made in my life," she said. Now Doebel's making another tough decision. After nearly a year on strike, Doebel is crossing the picket line, returning to work at the Petoskey hospital. "I miss my job," she said. Doebel's first day back at the hospital will be Sunday, she said. She cited "personal, family things" for prompting her return, as well as a desire to get back to the obstetrics nursing she loves. "After a year, I'm just really afraid of losing my skills, not remembering how to do my job," she said. Doebel and her husband, John, have four children, including two at home and one in the military who will go to Iraq in January - "that's a nice added stresser," she said. Nurses typically work 36 hours a week, hospital officials said. They say there is no forced overtime, which strikers hotly dispute. Starting pay is $18 an hour and the average hourly wage is $22 to $25. The hospital gave nurses a raise after the strike began, but the sides remain far apart over pay and benefits. Doebel, who went to work at NMH out of nursing school five years ago, said she vacillated on whether to strike right up until a day or two before the walkout. "About 97 percent of my unit went out, so I decided to go out and support my peers. "I thought we'd go on strike for a few weeks, it would just finish itself up and things would get back to normal," she said. "Never in a million years did I imagine we would be out this long." Hospital house manager Dixie Cosier said 49 striking nurses have returned to work over the year-long strike. "They've been welcomed back with open arms," she said. Teamsters Local 406 business agent Sharon Norton said virtually all of the striking nurses who have gone back have done so reluctantly, and say they still support the union's cause. "They come in here and tell us, 'We've reached the end of our financial rope. We have family situations going on. We need and don't have insurance,'¡" Norton said. "It's been a tough year, and they've made tough decisions to go back in." Since January, Doebel has worked as a nurse at Grandvue Medical Care Facility just outside East Jordan, only minutes from her home. She said she's much more fortunate than some of her striking peers. "They've been through so much more than me, traveling downstate (for jobs)," she said. "People leaving the community, people with their kids pulling on their legs, crying - those are the stories that are really sad." Doebel said she looked for jobs as an obstetrics nurse with a travel company and had offers in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Ohio, California and Florida. "That would take an 18-week commitment away from my family," she said. "That wouldn't benefit me at all. I'd rather work at Burger King." Doebel said she's shared her decision to go back with some of her colleagues. "For the most part, I haven't found people to be too incredibly judgmental about the decision," she said. "It's been a hard time for everybody." Denise St. Onge, a fellow striking NMH nurse who also works at Grandvue, said decisions like Doebel's are personal. "I understand her hard times during this strike, and that there has been nothing that's replaced her passion to take care of babies and pregnant mothers," St. Onge said. "So she has my full support in going back." Doebel said she has mixed emotions - excitement at returning to her favorite kind of nursing, but regret and even a touch of guilt at leaving her fellow strikers on the picket line. "I hate feeling like I'm not supporting my peers by going back in," she said. "I wish we could just get a contract and settle this." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Sunday: Those who stayed and those who left.
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