The rally and informational picket final Saturday on the medical complicated of Michigan Medication in Ann Arbor demonstrated the willpower of nurses to win their combat for a brand new contract towards the fifth largest well being care system within the state of Michigan.

A whole lot of nurses and their supporters got here out to demand an finish to necessary time beyond regulation, prolonged on-call hours and staffing reductions which have been intensified all through the coronavirus pandemic and have made working circumstances at Michigan Medication insupportable.

As one nurse instructed the press at Saturday’s protest, “They [Michigan Medicine] laid off 788 essential help employees. Properly, their jobs didn’t go away—they only obtained given to the nurses.”

The turnout on July 16 confirmed that the 6,200 nurses at Michigan Medication are in a robust place to go on the offensive. By mobilizing their power in strike motion, together with the opposite 35,000 workers on the $5.5 billion hospital in addition to well being care staff throughout the state who’re going through the identical points, nurses can win their calls for.

Nevertheless, a pointy warning should be made to nurses {that a} betrayal of their wrestle is being ready behind closed doorways by the Michigan Nurses Affiliation (MNA) and its native affiliate, the College of Michigan Skilled Nurse Council (UMPNC).

For the MNA-UMPNC, the rally and informational picket was not the chance to organize for mass wrestle towards Michigan Medication. Quite the opposite, the union put Democratic Occasion politicians equivalent to Consultant Debbie Dingell of Ann Arbor and Michigan AFL-CIO bureaucrats equivalent to Ron Bieber on the platform and instructed nurses to put their confidence in these figures to deal with their scenario.

It’s a fraud to assert that the Democratic Occasion and the AFL-CIO—each central gamers within the assault on well being care staff and the transformation of the US well being care trade right into a sequence of money-making enterprises for a handful of executives and monetary elites—are going to combat for the pursuits of nurses.

For the union, the actual objective of the rally and informational picket was to set the stage for an announcement {that a} deal has been reached with Michigan Medication administration, whereas hiding the truth of a concessionary settlement dictated by the College of Michigan Board of Regents.

The union paperwork will then search to ram the contract via with out giving nurses adequate time to check and talk about an settlement that may influence them and their households for years to come back.

Three weeks have now handed for the reason that earlier contract between the hospital and the nurses expired on June 30. The union allowed the contract to run out and did nothing. It didn’t even demand the extension of the previous contract, giving administration the chance to forego scheduled pay will increase.

All through the contract negotiations that started in late March, the MNA-UMPNC has not even put ahead any particular calls for on wages, advantages or working circumstances for nurses.

Whereas the union has been assembly with administration 5 days per week for the previous two months, the talks haven’t been between two adversaries. The discussions have been about the most effective means to impose even harsher circumstances and a reduce in actual wages on the nurses, in step with the college’s technique to extend income on the expense of hospital employees and sufferers. The union’s sole concern is to safe the salaries and positions of the union executives.

The pursuits of rank-and-file nurses should not represented in these closed-door conferences, whose outcomes are by no means critically reported to the nurses.

On July 13, for instance, the union issued a pro-forma bargaining replace that mentioned, “Negotiations are ongoing, and we’re advocating for our members on the desk day-after-day.”

In the meantime, the MNA-UMPNC admits that administration is demanding “101 concessions” in its contract supply.

Nurses have the proper to know exactly what the union bargaining group is discussing with a administration that has made it clear it should settle for nothing however a brand new concessionary settlement.

Because the World Socialist Internet Website Well being Care Employees Publication has identified all through the contract combat, Michigan Medication nurses are going through a wrestle towards each the administration of the well being care system and its brokers within the MNA-UMPNC management.

Michigan Medication has labored out a long-term enterprise technique—together with the development of a brand new $1 billion hospital known as The Pavilion in Ann Arbor—that may intensify the exploitation of nurses. The union accepts and collaborates within the implementation of those plans whereas leaving nurses at midnight about what is absolutely happening.

To forestall the sellout of their wrestle, nurses should seize the initiative now and switch the scenario round by demanding an instantaneous strike vote and date for a walkout.

Together with these actions, the nurses ought to formulate their very own checklist of calls for to be included within the new contract. They need to proceed from the precept that the contract should be decided by the wants of the nurses and the protection of their sufferers, not what administration says it may possibly afford.

The World Socialist Internet Website Well being Care Employees Publication means that nurses take up the next calls for:

1. A pay improve of 10 p.c per 12 months, plus cost-of-living changes (COLA) calibrated on a month-to-month foundation in order that wages preserve tempo with rising inflation, presently at 9.1 p.c yearly.
2. Secure nurse-to-patient ratios. Rent extra nurses and help employees. The hospital should enhance circumstances so nurses can guarantee their very own well being and security and that of their sufferers.
3. Halt necessary time beyond regulation and prolonged on-call hours. Nurses are bored with being known as heroes whereas being handled like rubbish. They deserve a top quality of life that’s free from 16-hour shifts and being on name all hours of the day and evening.
4. Improve protections towards COVID-19. New and extra harmful variants are rising. Nurses want adequate PPE, facility upgrades and procedures put in place to make sure their well being and security whereas on the job and defend the well being of their sufferers.

To realize these calls for, nurses want to ascertain a rank-and-file committee that may unite them with medical doctors and help employees at Michigan Medication in addition to different well being care staff within the state. This committee, which might be made up of rank-and-file workers on the hospital, will present the means for nurses themselves to claim democratic management over the method, towards the bureaucratic manipulation of their wrestle by the MNA-UMPNC equipment.

Nurses ought to demand that bargaining conferences be live-streamed to allow them to see what’s being mentioned behind closed doorways.

All these measures should be performed independently of and towards the Democratic Occasion, one of many two events of huge enterprise and the well being care and insurance coverage trade. One of many causes the Democrats and the Michigan AFL-CIO are so involved concerning the scenario at Michigan Medication is that they worry the wrestle will break freed from their domination and hyperlink up with ongoing struggles of autoworkers, lecturers and different staff.

Another excuse is the Democratic Occasion main elections that might be held in Michigan on August 2 and the final election in November, during which Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer is operating for a brand new time period. The MNA-UMPNC, together with the AFL-CIO, need to have the Michigan Medication nurses’ contract resolved prematurely of those occasions.

The constructing of rank-and-file committees of nurses and well being care staff will advance the combat to unite all staff on the premise of a program that meets the wants of working individuals—together with assured, high-quality well being look after all, freed from cost, achieved by taking the revenue out of well being care.