The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, August 31, 2022 — 7A
IRENA LI
Summer News Editor
Michigan Medicine nurses
sue University amid contract
negotiations
Union alleges ‘U’ violated state law on bargaining
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lsa.umich.edu/Judaic
TRANSCENDS
LEARNING
THAT
BORDERS
I I .U M I C H . E D U/ P I C S
The current state and
future of abortion care at
Michigan Medicine
TESS CROWLEY/Daily
What abortion access looks like at U-M
RILEY HODDER &
SAMANTHA RICH
Summer Managing News Editor &
Summer News Editor
KEITH MELONG/Daily
Read more at michigandaily.com
News
MICHIGAN GOVERNMENT
The
Michigan
Nurses
Association filed a lawsuit against
the University of Michigan amid
ongoing
contract
negotiations
with the University of Michigan
Professional
Nurses
Council.
The suit, filed Monday in the
Court of Claims, alleges that the
administration has violated state
law by refusing to negotiate with
the union over nurses’ workload.
Specifically, the lawsuit claims
the University is violating the
Public Employment Relations Act
of 1947, which requires bargaining
agreements
between
public
employers and labor organizations
to consider “wages, hours and
other conditions of employment.”
According to a statement from
the MNA, 6,200 nurses in the
union have worked without a
contract since July 1, when the
union’s previous contract with the
University expired. The two parties
have yet to reach a new agreement
and have been negotiating since
March 15.
The
Association
also
cited
statistics
identifying
high
workload ratios as responsible for
preventable infections and injuries
among patients and nurses in
the United States. Renee Curtis,
UMPNC president and registered
nurse, said patient safety was the
union’s primary concern.
“Our union is fighting for patient
safety, first and foremost,” Curtis
said in a statement. “It’s absurd
to think that conversations about
how to keep patients safe can be
effective without talking about our
nurses’ workloads.”
In an email to The Michigan
Daily,
Michigan
Medicine
spokesperson Mary Masson wrote
that University of Michigan
Health,
Michigan
Medicine’s
clinical division, will “vigorously
defend itself” in the lawsuit.
Masson
wrote
that
the
University’s
current
contract
offer provides a 6 percent raise
for first-year nurses and a 5
percent raise per year for the
next three years. The University
has also offered to introduce a
salary step program for nurse
practitioners
and
eliminate
mandatory overtime to address
overtime
“University
of
Michigan
Health
makes
staffing
determinations
with
patient
safety at the forefront of its
decisions, and this has produced
outstanding
safety
results,”
Masson wrote. “We continue
to bargain in good faith.”In
addition to the lawsuit, MNA
filed an unfair labor practice
charge against the University
with the Michigan Employment
Relations Commission. Pending
the MERC ruling, the lawsuit
asks for an injunction that would
immediately force the University
to bargain over nurse-to-patient
staffing ratios.
MICHIGAN GOVERNMENT
The Supreme Court’s June 24
overturning of Roe v. Wade ignited
rapid changes in state abortion laws,
with eight states having already
banned abortion and four more
expected to do so over the summer.
Abortion remains legal in Michi-
gan due to a preliminary injunc-
tion against the state’s 1931 law
criminalizing all abortions except
to save the pregnant person’s life.
The 1931 law was nullified by the
1973 Roe v. Wade decision but never
officially repealed. In light of the
uncertainty surrounding abortion
access in Michigan, a coalition of
organizations created the Repro-
ductive Freedom for All ballot ini-
tiative, a constitutional amendment
to protect reproductive rights that
received over 800,000 signatures in
support.
The draft decision to overturn
Roe v. Wade was initially published
by Politico in May, after which the
University of Michigan announced
the creation of a “Post-Roe Task
Force” composed of individuals
across various areas and occupa-
tions, including healthcare profes-
sionals, legal representatives and
students and faculty working in rele-
vant research areas. The task force is
designed to mitigate the effects of a
potential abortion ban in Michigan.
Dr. Lisa Harris, a physician at
Michigan Medicine who provides
abortion care and a co-chair of the
task force, said this task force cov-
ered a wide variety of topics that
arose when Roe v. Wade was over-
turned.
“There’s two broad buckets of
work that the task force is doing,”
Harris said. “One is campus work, so
thinking about all the
ways in which students
and faculty and staff
across all the different
campuses and schools
will be impacted. And
the second bucket is
around clinical care
and treatment.”
Harris
described
the task force’s sub-
committees,
which
are working to address
individual issues, such as which
abortions Michigan Medicine could
still provide if the 1931 ban, or a ban
like it, were to take effect, as well as
clarifying Title IX protections and
student insurance policies.
Following the official overturn-
ing of Roe v. Wade, Michigan Medi-
cine released a public statement
reaffirming its commitment to pro-
viding abortion care and resources,
so long as abortion remains legal in
the state.
“U-M Health remains commit-
ted to providing high-quality, safe
reproductive care for patients, across
all their reproductive health needs,”
the statement read. “This includes
abortion care, which remains legal
in Michigan while challenges to
various state-law criminal statutes
continue to proceed.”
According to Michigan Medicine,
many of the patients for whom they
provide abortions are experiencing
serious pregnancy complications
or underlying health conditions.
While they can provide outpatient
medication abortions in some cases,
they also outline various local clin-
ics such as the Planned Parenthood
Ann Arbor Health Center that do so
more often.
Michigan Medicine still provides
access to abortion care, but Dr. Dee
Fenner, chair of obstetrics and gyne-
cology at Michigan Medicine and
co-chair of the task force, said that
access would change if a ban were to
be put into place.
“Obviously, we would follow the
law,” Fenner said. “That would sig-
nificantly impact our ability to care
for patients.”
Under the 1931 ban, Michigan
Medicine would still be available
to provide abortions in life-threat-
ening events. However, according
to Harris, there is little clarity on if
a doctor can provide an abortion in
a situation where the threat to the
pregnant person’s life is uncertain or
evolving.
“It’s unclear if we would be able
to provide abortion care early in
pregnancy, when there’s not an
imminent threat to someone’s life, in
order to prevent an imminent threat
later,” Harris said. “So that’s one
thing that’s ambiguous: the timing
of it. Do they have to be imminently
at risk, or what if their risk is later?”
Harris highlighted ectopic preg-
nancies, a condition in which the
fertilized egg implants outside of the
uterus — most commonly in the fal-
lopian tube. The uterus is the only
organ in which a pregnancy can be
carried to term, so the treatment
for an ectopic pregnancy is medi-
cal or surgical termination of the
pregnancy. Left untreated, ectopic
pregnancies can rupture and cause a
life-threatening hemorrhage.