Nearly 11 months after nurses at Munson Medical Center voted to unionize, negotiations are heading toward a comprehensive contract agreement, with some key issues already resolved.
 
“We’ve reached tentative agreements on several issues, including things like open enrollment, staffing services, remote patient monitoring, annual discussions, nurse resignations, and medical screenings,” says Dianne Michalek, director of corporate communications & public relations for Munson Healthcare.
 
In 2016, talk of unionization began when a Munson nurse contacted the Michigan Nursing Association (MNA), which represents some 14,000 RNs statewide. Those talks eventually led to a unionization election among certain nursing factions at Munson Medical Center last August. Of the eligible nurses who cast ballots, 489 voted for unionization; 439 voted against.
 
It took a month for the unionization to be certified, and another three months for the union to put together a bargaining committee and draw up an initial proposal. Since then, the Munson nursing union has had 10 collective bargaining sessions with Munson, with the hospital’s interests represented by a panel of nurse managers and human resources staff.
 
Dagmar Cunningham, a 24-year Munson employee and a member of the union’s collective bargaining committee -- and Michalek -- both tell The Ticker there’s plenty of work yet to be done. The average bargaining process for a union’s first contract negotiation typically takes a year or longer. The union and Munson had their first collective bargaining session on December 3, which means the process hasn’t even hit the seven-month mark yet. Cunningham also says that bargaining conversations have yet to wind around to one of the most crucial and contentious subjects of all: wages.
 
Citing an “occupational wage index” compiled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Cunningham says Munson is ranked 63rd in wages among Michigan hospitals, out of 73. While the CMS report does not include all hospitals – small and specialty hospitals are exempt – Cunningham still thinks the low wage ranking is telling.
 
“Munson says that they compare themselves to other hospitals our size, because we’re not that big,” Cunningham says. “But you have to compare to hospitals that offer the high-quality services we do, like open-heart surgery and the Cancer Center. We’re not just a small hospital. We’re a regional center, and since Munson has all these other hospitals, we get patients from Sault Ste Marie, we get them from Alpena, we get them from West Branch. It’s quite a radius.”
 
Cunningham also tells The Ticker that Munson’s wages aren’t keeping talented nurses around, partially because of the cost of living in the Grand Traverse area. Higher wages and better benefits, she says, would resolve some of the turnover issues the hospital is facing.
 
“We just want to make sure we recruit talented nurses to this area and that we can retain them,” she says. “Munson has made good efforts to recruit nurses, but what people find out once they move to Traverse City is that it is very expensive to live here. That means a lot of people stay here for a little while, they get their experience, and then they move on. So we’re in constant flux.”
 
According to Michalek, Munson is already making efforts to improve pay and employee retention. Several years ago, before the union vote even happened, Munson Healthcare implemented “a multi-year plan to address wages.” As a result of that plan, Michalek says that Munson’s nurses have received a cumulative 17.2 percent wage increase over the last five years. Munson is also striving to give nurses more job flexibility, by setting up an internal staffing agency that allows part-time RNs to be temporarily placed throughout the Munson Healthcare system at the hospitals that need them most.
 
So far, Michalek thinks these efforts are working. Munson’s nursing vacancy rate is currently at 3.35 percent, while the national average is 8.5 percent. This year, the hospital also increased its starting-level pay from $11 to $13 – not just in nursing, but across many job categories. All told, Michalek says that 53 percent of Munson Healthcare’s budget is devoted to staffing and benefit costs.
 
“We are absolutely committed to offering competitive wages and benefits,” she says. “It just takes an entire healthcare team to run a hospital 24/7, and that consists of hundreds of job roles. The wage issue is not something we can address across the board all at once and fix overnight.”