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October 7, 2003NMH STRIKE: Granholm wants talksByRecord-Eagle staff writer PETOSKEY - Gov. Jennifer Granholm is urging Northern Michigan Hospital administrators to return to the bargaining table in hopes of ending a nearly 11-month nurses strike. But hospital officials said they will not change their stance. They say the strike can end only when the Teamsters union representing striking nurses accepts management's final offer made last December. In a Monday interview with the Record-Eagle, Granholm called hospital management's position "intransigent," and characterized as "almost irrational" hospital administrators' refusal since last November to bargain with striking nurses. "My desire here is to exhort the hospital to take a leadership role in healing the community," Granholm said. "I am very concerned that the cost of this strike is enormous." Eugene Kaminski, hospital vice president of human resources, said administrators "are appreciative of the governor's concern, just as we are, for resolution in this matter." Kaminski, however, said labor disputes are federal issues, overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. And the NLRB has ruled hospital management's bargaining as lawful and "in good faith," he said. While hospital management may "technically be in compliance" with federal labor law, Granholm said, administrators are not adhering to the spirit of the law, which calls for two sides to negotiate a settlement. "You don't permanently turn your back," she said. Sharon Norton, business agent for Teamsters Local 406, welcomed Granholm's intervention. The union remains at the ready to resume bargaining, she said. "I can only hope that (hospital management) will not thumb their nose at the top official of the state, as they have everyone else," she said. Granholm supported the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel she appointed earlier this year to look into the impacts of the nurses strike on health care in northern Michigan. The panel held public hearings in Petoskey in July and released its findings last month. The panel found that hospital management has pursued a strategy of paying replacement nurses at a premium, rather than work toward a settlement of the labor impasse - jeopardizing the hospital's already precarious fiscal stability. The panel called on the state Department of Consumer and Industry Services to review all minutes of the hospital's infection control committee, and all serious accident reports, from the time of the strike to the present. Granholm said the department is already looking at hospital data, and will continue to do so. Kaminski said the hospital welcomed the review. "We're confident that the services provided remain at the highest level," he said. "Our (infection) rates have not changed since the strike began." Hospital spokesman Thomas Spencer said earlier state reviews of health care at the hospital since the strike commenced showed no findings of poor health care. Hospital officials continue to decline a recommendation by the blue-ribbon panel and Granholm that they provide a public, independent audit of all strike-related staffing costs. About half of Northern Michigan Hospital's approximately 470 nurses went on strike last Nov. 14, seeking improved pay, benefits and nurse-patient ratios and a greater say in patient-care issues. It is one of the longest nursing strikes in U.S. history. The NLRB is currently considering petitions calling for a vote on whether to decertify the Teamsters union as the nurses' representative. A vote could occur by mid-November.
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