Your bargaining team completed another full day of mediation with MCMC, and we are pleased to report movement was made in our efforts to reach a final agreement. We are cautiously optimistic we can continue to make progress and recognize that your work away from the table distributing flyers and yard signs, our solidarity displayed at our union meetings, the buttons you are wearing in the workplace, and your voice throughout the community was no doubt a big contributing factor in our progress. Thank you to those of you who attended the membership meeting; we appreciate your input. Your thoughts and ideas were helpful in our work at the bargaining table today. It was also helpful to see some new faces at our membership meeting on Thursday night. Each of you always gives us the energy we need to keep pushing.
Friday we advanced our wage proposal and received a counterproposal with real recognition by the hospital of its inability to recruit and keep staff.
We still have issues that are important to all of you that need to be addressed and we are meeting again Friday with the mediator to continue our efforts towards an agreement. The power of solidarity is always more than the power of an individual, so please keep up the good work. We’ll update you again as soon as we have new information.