Jeff Sanders, President of Maine Medical Center, Will Now Have to Negotiate with a Union.
Nurses at Maine Medical Center in Portland voted to form the first ever union with the Maine State Nurses Association. The information was released Thursday, April 29, 2021 evening. The vote was 1,001 to 750 to unionize, a large majority of the almost 2,000 nurses working at Maine’s largest hospital.
Members of the public rallied around the nurses and encouraged them to unionize in numerous columns and editorials in the local press. A previous effort to unionize by the nurses failed.
Damaging to the reputation of this major hospital that is undergoing a massive expansion, were reports that out-of-state consultants hired to defeat the nurses’ effort to unionize had received COVID-19 vaccinations. There were also reports that wealthy donors to the hospital bucked the long wait lines to be vaccinated ahead of their designated turn. One likes to believe and trust that a major hospital in the area uses only the best judgment possible in all aspects of its daily operations. There should be no room for capricious calls when it comes to health care facilities.
Ballots went out to nurses on March 29 and were to be returned by April 27, 2021. The day following the mailing, Jeff Sanders, president of Maine Medical Center, wrote an editorial in the “Republican Press Herald,” entitled “Nurses Union Trying to Tear MMC Down to Build Themselves Up.” That March 30 headline from Sanders is infantile and childish. It’s insulting to women and unions generally. Sanders stated in part that during the on-going pandemic MMC and its parent company, Maine Health, has stood by its nurses, “doing everything possible to ease their burden, just as they have done everything possible to care for their patients.”
As stated previously in this blog, Sanders was once employed in the healthcare field in the Salt Lake City, Utah area – a part of the country dominated by a cultural that more often than not treats women like second class citizens. Many women in that part of the US are merely pawns in a selfish chess game. Is that the leadership that Sanders brought with him to MMC?
Apparently, MMC nurses disagree with the Sanders’ claim of standing by their nurses. There were charges that MMC nurses were overworked and underpaid. Some nurses have stated that the problems started well before the COVID-19 pandemic. A fact, that Mr. Sanders chose to ignore because it was an honest assessment of the situation there. Something he has not been.
“I congratulate the nurses at Maine Medical Center on their decisive voice to unionize and expect the management of Maine Medical Center to respect that decision so both sides can begin a productive contract negotiation,” said Governor Janet Mills, in a press release issued today.
For more background information, please visit post herein dated February 3, 2021. On the subject of the expansion plans for MMC, please see post herein dated December 17, 2018 covered in person by mhn.com. Shortly thereafter this blogger was capriciously eliminated from receiving press releases with no explanation. Huh?!