L’ANSE – Union nurses at Baraga County Memorial Hospital signed a new three-year contract last month that will give the largest group of nurses involved first-year raises ranging from 2.96 percent to 4.97 percent. Nursing supervisors in a second bargaining group got 2.5 percent raises the first year, according to the Michigan Nurses Association.

Highly experienced nurses in both groups were given raises of at least 1 percent, but the top four steps of a previously 11-step pay scale were eliminated for new nurses and those currently at step 7 or lower on the pay scale.

The deal includes minimum 1 percent raises for all nurses in the second year of the contract and fresh wage negotiations the third year, with benefits staying the same.

Nurses are also eligible for a 3 percent bonus in any year of the contract the hospital turns a profit, said Fred Kotler, a Michigan Nurses Association representative who handled negotiations for the union.

The nurses had been without a contract since May 28, and their wages had been frozen for five years until the hospital unilaterally gave them a raise in June, with what appear to be the same increases included in year one of the new contract. Both state and federal negotiators participated in the talks, Kotler said.

The first-year raises helped nurses make up some of the ground lost during the wage freeze, Kotler said, but the elimination of the top steps of the wage scale raised questions about the hospital’s ongoing ability to hire and retain skilled nurses.

“It was a tough negotiation and a long process,” Kotler said. “I think everybody’s glad we reached agreement, but there’s some concern about the wage structure, what it means for recruitment and retention.”

“We look at comparable wages to other facilities, and it’s still below market,” he added.

BCMH CEO Margie Hale wrote in an email that both the larger raises for the front-line nurses and the elimination of the top steps of the pay scale were consistent with the BCMH board’s philosophy of moving pay toward the 50th percentile of wages earned by nurses with similar qualifications elsewhere.

The board had commissioned and received a wage study of other hospitals’ pay rates to determine that 50th percentile.

“The goal of the hospital is to remain competitive in wages with other facilities of similar size, which is why the compensation survey is performed,” she wrote.

Hale added that nurses have remained committed to providing quality patient care and cited the hospital’s recent nursing competency fair as one example of nurses working to practice and improve their skills.

“The staff at BCHM is dedicated to maintaining top notch skills to care for our patients,” she wrote.

The union also agreed to a letter of understanding that defines when salaried nurse supervisors can substitute for hourly workers, a practice union nurses said could cut into their hours.

Kotler said the letter of understanding made it clear substitute opportunities should be given to union nurses first, with salaried employees filling in only when absolutely necessary.

Hale said the flexibility was important to maintaining care under unusual circumstances.

“(It) allows the hospital to have a deeper pool of nurses in times of extremely high (patient) census or illness among the staff nurses,” she said.

Overall, said Kotler, the deal represented progress for the nurses, but they were still more poorly paid than they had been when the wage freeze began in 2010.

“We made up some ground,” he said. “But we definitely didn’t fully make up for the wage freeze.”