Labor History: When Nurses Unionized Mount Desert Island Hospital

As we wrote last week, the organizing drive of registered nurses at Millinocket Regional Hospital in 1981 went rather smoothly, in part because it was such a strong union town with the Great Northern Paper mills running. But that didn’t explain what happened next. Bar Harbor was not exactly a hot bed of labor activism in the 1980s, but nurses there would prove to be another bright spot in what was an incredibly challenging decade for organized labor.

RNs at the 66-bed Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor had tried to form a union in 1977 and 1978, but those efforts fizzled due to a lack of interest. Then in the spring of 1983, growing frustration over several issues around patient care reached a crescendo and the nurses filed a petition to unionize with the Maine State Nurses Association.

On the day of the union election on April 1, 1983, off-duty RNs from the pro-union and anti-union sides mingled in separate groups in the lobby, the medical library and in the halls with on-duty nurses awaiting the election results of the day-long balloting. Speaking to the Ellsworth American, the pro-union nurses outlined the reasons they wanted to organize.

“The nurses would like more say in numerous areas, areas they feel they now have little say in. We would like more say in the type of equipment we use,” RN Phyllis Kane told the Ellsworth American. “Nurses are frequently given equipment and they are the ones that know its advantages and limitations, but at present we have no say in the acquisition or use of equipment. The people using the equipment feel they should have some say in what equipment they shall be required to use in patient care.”

Maine State Nurses Association organizer Polly Campbell told the reporter that “the nurses are writing their own contract. What is really exciting is that it is nurses representing nurses as opposed to a trade union. We’re all nurses. I’m a registered nurse. This is a professional association because they felt it could best meet their needs.”

The nurses said that safe staffing was also a major concern as there were often times when there weren’t enough RNs allotted for extra care. They also expressed the desire for more consistency in workplace policies by having them in writing. Pay was also a big issue.

“I make the same at nine years said RN Doris Plumer, “as someone who has been here only three months.

They also complained about the vacation policy, which required nurses to be responsible for finding their own weekend replacements to cover them if they took any time off. Kane argued that the practice put staffing responsibilities on the nurses when it should be the responsibility of the hospital. The RNs said all nurses should be able to attend trainings and seminars, but under the status quo only a select few ever got sent to them. They argued that the hospital should pay all costs of additional training, or at least meet them half-way.

As the polls closed, nurses crowded into the tiny room to watch the ballots being counted. While they were being divided into ‘yes’ and ‘no’ piles, smiles began forming on the pro-union side as the nurses tabulated the votes in notebooks. Of the 37 eligible to vote, the final vote showed 23 Yes for the union, 13 No, and one contested. Finally, the hospital’s attorney, Peter Jacobs, leaned across the table and gave Polly Campbell a congratulatory handshake. Supporters of the union gave a cheer and instamatic cameras were quickly retrieved to grab a group portrait of the new union’s officers. The new members of the Maine State Nurses Association named their union Local 982 to commemorate the 9th month of 1982 when union organizing at the hospital first began.

James Mroch, the hospital administrator, offered no comment to the press on the election and immediately went on vacation the next day. David Matlack, the hospital’s director of personnel, said he was “obviously” upset by the nurses’ decision, but he called them “good people” with whom management would continue to work closely. When he returned from vacation and the election had been certified, Mroch said, "We've got the union whether we like it or not, and we'll make the best of it."

With the victory of the MDI nurses, they joined a growing MSNA family that included RNs at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and Millinocket. The momentum was picking up as RNs across the state began exploring the idea of unionizing to address quality-of-care issues. As Campbell noted to a reporter, MSNA was hearing the same concerns from nurses across the state who felt powerless to meet the rigorous standards of their profession because management obstinately refused to take their concerns seriously.

However, that same year, President Reagan’s appointees on the National Labor Relations Board threw up a major barrier to organizing hospitals. They ruled that nurses’ bargaining units be required to include other professionals like physicians’ assistants, pharmacists, social workers, counselors and others who didn’t necessarily want to be in the same union as RNs. But over in Calais, nurses and other health care workers would soon defy the odds and win Maine’s first all-professional bargaining unit in the private sector. More on that next week!