WLKM Radio 95.9 FM
More than a hundred people took part in a rally bringing awareness to an impasse in contract negotiations between nurses from Three Rivers Beacon Health and Beacon executives.
For more than an hour Tuesday afternoon, members of Michigan Nurses Association, and their family members and supporters, staged an informational picket outside the West Broadway Street facility.
About 75 nurses at the Three Rivers medical-care facility are members of the MNA. They have been working without a contract since a three-year agreement expired at the end of March.
Nurses said negotiations have been ongoing since January and, based on several anecdotes shared during Tuesday’s event, the two sides are not close to a mutually acceptable agreement.
Inspired by horn-honking motorists and catchy chants amplified through bullhorns, picketers were joined by union nurses from Sturgis Hospital and Kalamazoo-based Borgess Hospital as a show of support. Union members from other labor fields joined the event, too.
The next round of discussions in Three Rivers is supposed to take place next week, a number of nurses said.
Attempts Tuesday morning and afternoon to reach Heidi Prescott, Beacon’s director of corporate communications, were unsuccessful.
Where can we get signs in support?