Munson Medical Center administrators and nurses represented by the Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) have reached a tentative three-year agreement, with both sides expressing their satisfaction with the deal following 15 months of negotiations.

The agreement will officially go into effect once nurses vote to ratify the contract, a move that could take place in the next 7-10 days, according to Carolyn Moss, RN, who sat on the nurses’ bargaining team. “I think we’ve achieved a really great agreement,” says Moss. “I think we can all be proud of it. There’s good language in there about staffing and limitations on mandatory overtime. Those were big issues, so to have an opportunity to sit down with administrators to talk about those things was really important to us. We all worked hard to work through those issues and come to an agreement that we can all have ownership of.”

Munson nurses voted 489-439 to unionize in August 2017, with the MNA requesting the union’s first bargaining session in December 2017. Since then, a collective bargaining committee containing members of both Munson administration and nursing staff has met for multiple day-long sessions each month to work on contract terms, with additional discussions taking place in sidebar breakouts. Staffing, scheduling, and mandatory overtime were all cited as major issues in negotiations; because the union was working toward a first-time contract, a range of other issues from wages to handling grievances to arbitration also had to be addressed, says Munson Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications Dianne Michalek.

“This is a first-time contract, so it needed to be a very comprehensive contract,” she says. “It embodies a lot of details that both parties were concerned with…now it’s up to the nurses to approve and review the agreement. We really hope they’ll accept it, so we can all move forward as one healthcare team.”

Both Michalek and Moss declined to discuss specific terms of the tentative agreement, citing a desire to share those details with nurses first before they are made public. Moss says several meetings are scheduled this week to bring nurses up to speed before a ratification vote. A press release distributed by the MNA hints the agreement “includes provisions to safeguard staffing levels, limits to mandatory overtime, and raises to recruit and retain quality RNs.” Moss says she is confident the agreement will be ratified by the MNA membership, adding that there will be an opportunity to renegotiate in the next contract if any terms prove untenable to either side. “We know that not everything is going to be perfect,” she says. “When we renegotiate the next contract, there may be things where if we have them in place for three years, we can say, ‘You know what, this isn’t working.’ It’ll make it even better. I know what we’ve got is great, and I’m really happy with it.”

Both sides acknowledge negotiations brought tensions and friction, with public support for nurses – such as with community yard sign campaigns – shining a scrutinizing spotlight on Munson. Michalek says Munson has remained “committed to bargaining in good faith” with the newly formed union, and that she’s hopeful a ratified agreement will help heal any lingering divides between nursing staff and administrators.

“This has been a long and challenging process…and we appreciate the community’s interest in this, and their patience, as we had to work through many long hours to get to this point,” she says. “We have always worked together, both administrators and the nurses, to keep our focus on the patients. That’s our commitment to the community, and that will never change.”

Moss echoes Michalek’s remarks. “I think Munson is a great place to work, and that nurses are excited about this and about the ability to have a say in these really important issues,” she says. “I do think throughout the process of these negotiations, we’ve developed a better relationship with nurses administrators who we didn’t know as well (before). They’ve listened to what we’re saying, and we’ve heard from them. Did it get tense? Yes. But it was a productive dialogue, and it led to us achieving a historic first agreement and a great contract.”