The union that represents about 800 nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor has signed a new collective bargaining agreement, ending a long dispute over staffing, according to a union news release issued Friday.

At a membership meeting Friday, members of the Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses United voted overwhelmingly to ratify the new agreement, which they said contains “significant measures to strengthen patient care delivery.”

Key elements of the contract are the hospital’s commitment to hire 30 additional registered nurses to alleviate staffing shortages, reduce patient care assignments for nurses working night shifts, and expand the use of “resource nurses” to “buttress safe staffing in the Emergency Department and on general medical-surgical patient floors,” it said.

All of the union’s registered nurses will receive a 6 percent increase in pay over the three years of the agreement, the release said, which will help retain a more experienced staff.

After months of unsuccessful contract negotiations, the nurses had called for a two-day strike that would have begun Monday had an agreement not been reached.

Copy the Story Link