PETOSKEY, Mich., Nov. 15 (AP) — For a year now, hundreds of nurses have been on strike at Northern Michigan Hospital.þþThe walkout by about half of the hospital's registered nurses hit the one-year mark on Friday, with no end in sight. No talks have been held since the work stoppage began, and none are planned. The two sides do not even agree on the issues behind the strike.þþHospital administrators say it is about money and a union power grab; the nurses say it is about working conditions and quality of care. They say that they are short-handed, overworked and treated shabbily and that patient care is suffering.þþBut with the dispute at an impasse, the 506 Teamsters-represented nurses began voting Thursday on whether to stay with the union they joined in 2001.þþThe conflict has created bitter divisions in Petoskey, a resort community of 6,100 year-round residents on Lake Michigan. Strike supporters proclaim their allegiance with ÿNMH Negotiateÿ yard signs.þþJulia Hulderman, a striker from the cardiovascular unit who has worked at the hospital for 19 years, said walking out was a last resort. ÿWe were literally a bunch of dogs that had been kicked by their owner for years and years,ÿ she said.þþBut Doretta Anderson, an emergency room nurse who has spent the past 13 of her 20 years in nursing at Northern Michigan, said she continued to work because she believed striking was inappropriate for life-and-death professions like nursing.þþÿI've never had any issue where I felt I couldn't stand up and do something about it,ÿ Ms. Anderson said. ÿ Some days we're just overwhelmed. But can the Teamsters pull nurses out of thin air?ÿþþNorthern Michigan officials deny that nurses are overworked or mistreated. The average patient-to-nurse ratio is 3.5 to 1, better than at 90 percent of the nation's hospitals, said a spokesman, Tom Spencer. (Strikers say nurses in some units handle six to nine patients at once.) Mr. Spencer insisted overtime was not forced, which strikers disputed.þþStarting pay is $18 an hour and the average hourly wage is $22 to $25. The sides remain far apart over pay and benefits.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
