Contact: Shar Anderson, RN, Staff Council President
Lenawee Health Alliance Registered Nurse Association
517/605-8771

OR

Lisa Harrison, Esq.
Michigan Nurses Association
517/349-5640 x38 or (cell) 517/927-6344
Lisa.harrison@minurses.org

OR

Carol Feuss, MA
Labor Communications Specialist
Michigan Nurses Association
517/349-5640, ext. 21 or (cell) 517/230-4086
carol.feuss@minurses.org

September 15, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Registered Nurses vote down
PROMedica/Lenawee Health Alliance’s “final offer”

Adrian, MI – Lenawee Health Alliance Registered Nurses turned down a final contract offer by ProMedica. The nearly 200 RNs at Herrick Memorial Hospital in Tecumseh, MI and Bixby Medical Center in Adrian, MI voted to reject ProMedica’s offer.

“The vote shows that the membership firmly supports the bargaining team,” said Shar Anderson, RN Staff Council President of the Lenawee Health Alliance Registered Nurses Association. “We cannot accept a contract that compromises our ability to recruit nurses, or get them to stay once they’ve joined LHA.”

“We are hopeful that ProMedica will reconsider and agree to resume negotiations," said Lisa Harrison, chief negotiator for the Union. Negotiation sessions with state and federal mediators broke off when ProMedica issued a final offer to the nurses.

“It doesn’t make sense – ProMedica wants the LHA nurses to continue to provide the high level of safe patient care the community needs and expects, yet they propose to reduce the amount of time and benefits the RNs have to take care of themselves,” Harrison continues. “Requiring RNs to work more hours and weakening their health care coverage does nothing to reduce the rate of RN turnover and eliminate the high dissatisfaction levels of nursing staff.”


The RNs at both Bixby and Herrick hospitals have been working without a contract since June 30, voted in July to authorize a strike, but have not served LHA management with a ten-day “intent to strike” notice.

-###-

The Michigan Nurses Association, nurses' voice for 100 years, is the largest nurses' union in the State of Michigan . The Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) promotes the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, fosters high standards of nursing practice, and lobbies the legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and recipients of nursing services. MNA is a constituent member of the American Nurses Association and the United American Nurses, as well as an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.