Munson Medical Center registered nurses, currently working without a contract, hosted a town hall on Thursday night to discuss their concerns with safe staffing and their progress on contract negotiations.
The previously negotiated contract for the Traverse City Munson Nurses Association (TCMNA) expired on March 10, and union president Laura Nilsson, president of the local union chapter, said their demands for nurse input on staffing have been rejected. The bargaining unit is made up of 850 nurses who work at the hospital.
They have planned a "practice strike" on at 4:30 p.m. on April 9 outside Munson Medical Center, open to the public, where they plan to rally for their desired contract.
"A couple of big picture things that we can all agree on: There are more patients now than ever before. Those patients are sicker, and there are fewer nurses," said Nilsson. "This is a difficult problem ... and that's why we're so excited about so many of our solutions. We think we've got some good ones."
Nilsson and the rest of the bargaining unit have met weekly with Munson Healthcare administration since January, negotiating for safe staffing guidelines in their next contract, and say their demands have — for the most part — been rejected.
"There's a lot of ways that we already include nurses' perspective in staffing decisions, and we make staffing decisions on a very regular basis," said Jenn Standfest, chief nursing officer for the Munson Healthcare system.
"The other things that they're looking for, or wanting to incorporate further, those are the types of things that we're still discussing at the bargaining table, and still have the opportunity to continue to work forward and make progress on," said Standfest, who was present at the meeting.
Several nurses who left Munson Medical Center in recent years spoke in front of the crowd of nurses and community members about high turnover rates among hospital nurses, high levels of burnout, and how each nurse's patient load was often too much to handle.
Many emphasized that Munson Medical Center is the only hospital in the region that provides certain types of medical care, and that there are no other hospitals in Traverse City. As the region grows, the whole community is dependent on this facility.
"I've been a patient in the hospital. My wife's been a patient in the hospital," said James Walker, grievance chair and the co-chair of the bargaining committee. "We want our nurses to make sure that we're not missing things and responding to care in every way possible, and to do that, we need better staffing, safer staffing and more reasonable workloads."
The union is also advocating for protections against the unregulated use of artificial intelligence at the hospital in the years to come.
"We're asking that any use of new technology needs to be reviewed by a nurse, and that telemedicine just can't take the place of hands-on care of patients," said Nilsson. "Those proposals have also been rejected."
The Traverse City Munson Nurses Association (TCMNA) is a local bargaining unit of the Michigan Nurses Association, affiliated with National Nurses United and AFL-CIO.
"Everybody around that table recognizes the criticality and importance of the role that Munson healthcare plays in healthcare for northern Michigan community members ... we're paying attention, we're being very thoughtful, we are listening," said Standfest, of Munson.
During the town hall presentation, Nilsson, the union president, displayed a slide on compensation, showing that the salary of Ed Ness, CEO of Munson Healthcare, has increased from more than $1.1 million in 2021 to nearly $2.5 million in 2024.
"We try to budget, we try to think about how much we'd like to see, percent [salary] increase per year. Does anybody ever get a 100 percent increase year over year?" Nilsson said as she displayed the slide. "Some people do."
