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April 11, 2004Both sides discuss strike issuesWages, pensions are two of the topics coveredByRecord-Eagle staff writer PETOSKEY - The Northern Michigan Hospital nurses strike, the longest of its kind in U.S. history, is now nearly 16 months old. But what's keeping the two sides from reaching an agreement? The Record-Eagle asked officials for both the hospital and Teamsters Local 406, the union representing striking nurses, to discuss specific contract-related issues that they see as sticking points fueling the impasse. Both striking and working nurses also were asked for input. WAGES Many striking nurses said there is too much wage disparity at NMH. "We would be working in the same unit, with the same tenure and same experience, and I'd be making $3 an hour more for no rhyme or reason," said striking nurse Lisa Paquet. Hospital president and CEO Thomas Mroczkowski said technological updates made to the hospital's payroll system this year should help allow the hospital to "correct inequities as they are identified." But Teamsters attorney Ted Iorio said hospital management couldn't help but know about nurse compensation inequities. "A lot of the problems that led to organizing were a direct result of how they were arbitrary in the way they dealt with individual nurses," he said. The hospital pays nurses a market-competitive wage, said Gene Kaminski, NMH vice president of human resources. Management looks at wages paid to nurses at hospitals statewide as provided by a Michigan Hospital Association survey, and uses them as a comparative benchmark, maintaining nurse pay ranges at "survey average," he said. Iorio, however, said the hospital's wage plan "gives them sole discretion on who gets what, when - if anybody." PENSION: Striking nurses expressed concern that management's plan for nurse retirement benefits could allow for a future change from the hospital contributing to nurses' pensions to the nurses having to make their own contributions. Mroczkowski denied that charge. "There is no change planned for our pension program and we are not even considering a requirement for employees to contribute," he said. Iorio said management has refused to discuss modernizations to the nurses' retirement that would allow them to receive more at the end of their careers. NURSE VOICE: Many striking nurses said they are not allowed a significant voice in patient-care issues. Reezie DeVet, the hospital's chief nursing officer, disagrees. "Nurses, if they so choose, have multiple avenues to provide input," she said. "Actually, they along with physicians and other health care professionals are the drivers of policy decisions." But striking nurse Julia Hulderman said the committee structure for nurse input as it exists does not allow for "the ability to have dialogue and not be afraid of reprisal or of getting ganged up on." Working nurse Joanne Reichert said the hospital has "a great process in place" for nurse involvement. "What more do they want?" she said. "They need to sit on these committees and go through the process. I've never felt that I couldn't bring something up." Striking nurse Patti Adelaine said she left one of the committees out of frustration. "What was going to happen was going to happen the way (management) wanted it, and anything I had to say made no difference whatsoever." UNION SECURITY: Any agreement with the Teamsters must include a nurse's right to determine whether to financially support the union, Mroczkowski said. Said Reichert, "I am grateful that the hospital has given me a choice." Iorio said the hospital has tried to use union security as an issue to divide nurses. Yet the union was voted in by an even wider margin by nurses last year than when it was first installed as their representative. The union is willing to negotiate on the issue, he said. ARBITRATION: The union has asked the hospital to agree to let an independent third party review the labor impasse and make either binding or advisory recommendations toward a resolution. Hospital management has refused, saying they will not give up decision-making authority. "The weight of all of their refusals is going to cave in on them eventually," Iorio said. "The hospital refuses to deal in good faith with its RNs. It has engaged in game-playing rather than bargaining." Mroczkowski said the strike is the Teamsters, not the hospital's. "We continue to be perplexed by why the Teamsters have sustained the strike," he said. "The Teamsters strike has not worked."
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