BRANCH COUNTY, MI (WTVB) – The 110-member Branch County Independent Nurses Association issued a statement on Thursday after it was announced a strike by the union against ProMedica Coldwater Regional Hospital had been averted thanks to a new three year contract agreement.
The union stated as they made preparations for a strike, “we were very pleased with the support we received from our membership as well as the community at large.”
They added after their intentions were made known, ProMedica requested a face to face meeting with their bargaining team which led to a meeting last Friday, January 27, 2023.
According to the statement, “At the end of the day, we reached a tentative agreement which provided a more competitive wage scale for our nurses over earlier rejected proposals in order to attract and retain nurses. On Wednesday, February 1st, 2023, our membership overwhelmingly ratified this new tentative agreement which establishes a three year contract.”
Union president and nurse Mary Osborne concluded the statement by saying, “We are pleased with the direction ProMedica wants to take our hospital, and the increased efforts they will be making to attract and retain more nurses. We look forward to continuing our high standard of patient care for our community and working together with ProMedica to create new opportunities for our hospital and for our community.”
Now will they reopen the surgical floor so that people won’t have to be transported all the way to Ft. Wayne, like that woman who got shot in the stomach by her mother last week? And will they start giving a damn about patients and nurses and listening to concerns, or will more nurses be just travel nurses instead of hard-working ones like my wife, who was told in November of 2021 that she could either quit or be fired because she had to make a hard choice between attending a class or being there for her daughter, who was having a difficult birth of her 4th child (she ended up quitting and taking a severance package of her accumulated sick time, which she would not have gotten if they had cut her loose)? She was a tireless worker for the hospital for over twenty years, and ProMedica does not care one good goddam about its employees.