Jessica Mathews / Public News Service / News@whmi.com


Hundreds of University of Michigan nurses and community supporters protested in Ann Arbor over the weekend as contract talks remain at a standstill.

Nurses say they’re fighting proposed staffing changes that could increase patient loads in some units, along with concerns over workplace protections for all nursing staff. The group marched around the hospital campus in what organizers described as an informational picket, not a work stoppage.

Michigan Professional Nurse Council President Kara Ayotte says they're concerned about how proposed staffing changes could affect both nurses and patients. “As we increase nursing workload and adding more patients to your patient assignment, it becomes harder to provide that high quality complex care that Michigan Medicine is known for and that our members provide that make Michigan Medicine a destination hospital”.

In a statement, University of Michigan Health says it remains committed to productive negotiations and reaching an agreement that supports the more than 75-hundred nurses covered under the contract, along with patient care.
The union has also filed unfair labor practice charges against the university, alleging labor law violations tied to advanced practice R-N's, including nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives.

Ayotte explained “the university wants to essentially not have them be part of our bargaining unit anymore. And that's one-sixth of our membership. It's over 1,000 of our members, and we want them to be treated just like the rest of us because a cut to one of us is a cut to all of us”.

Ayotte says the union also accuses the university of installing A-I-driven workplace monitoring sensors without bargaining first. Nurses have been negotiating since October, and their contract expired at the end of March.

Facebook photo.