This week we saw another tragic example of the dangers that nurses face in the workplace. Our team has made a proposal to bring improvements to workplace safety, strengthen protections against sexual harassment and require appropriate infectious disease and environmental hazard protections. Our health and wellness are continuously at risk and management must take an active role in protecting the well-being of all our members.
Next week, we will meet with Michigan Medicine workplace safety staff to discuss the exposure to danger our nurses face.
Our team is currently developing a proposal to strengthen on-call language as this is a critical article of our contract that affects many of our members. Nurses from several departments have repeatedly raised concerns about excessive on-call hours, but management has turned a blind-eye and the on-call hours have continued to increase. It is a violation of our contract to make changes to on-call without bargaining and they need to be held accountable.
Over the last year, management has approached our union with proposals for unit incentives. We are interested in incorporating “functional vacancy” data to establish incentives in the contract and have short staffing addressed in departments that are suffering.
Representatives from Work Connections will attend negotiations next week where we will report about the lack of support our members have experienced when applying for a medical leave of absence. Other U of M unions share our concerns about the broken system that is currently in place and will work with us to make improvements.
Our Rally at the Regents is quickly approaching. The university’s top leadership tell us they care about frontline heroes, but now is the time for them to show it. We need their support, so we need you!
Join us at the Regents of the University of Michigan meeting
Thursday, June 16th from 3pm – 6pm.