Maine Med, nurses union reach accord on paid leave

Mainebiz file photo Maine Medical Center in Portland is licensed for 700 beds and employs more than 9,600 people.

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Maine Medical Center nurses will receive paid leave benefits under an amended collective bargaining agreement with their employer.

The benefits were left out of a contract finalized last September after more than a year of negotiations.

Under the amendments announced Friday, paid leave benefits will be retroactive to December 2022 to compensate nurses who used personal time off or went unpaid to cover their time away from work.

“We are pleased to reach this agreement with union representatives to amend our contract,” said Devin Carr, Maine Med’s chief nursing officer. “Coming together at the table to build on our success achieved during contract negotiations to address contract concerns is critically important, particularly as we are just beginning to administer our first contract.”

Paid parental, bereavement, jury duty, witness and military leaves are also covered in the amended accord.

Additionally, the agreement calls for making official some additional pay practices for specific nursing roles and adds some specific scheduling “perks” — benefits for nurses with established seniority — to be consistent across units.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have back our paid leave that we were always entitled to keeping, but that the hospital chose to take away from us,” Mary Kate O'Sullivan, a registered nurse at Maine Med and member of the collective bargaining team, said in a statement emailed to Mainebiz. “We finally won it back without making any concessions.”

Burnout factor

The amended agreement comes as burnout continues to take its toll on nurses nationwide, three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a survey of 12,581 nurses across 50 states from Nov. 1-25, 2022, 64% reported feeling stressed, and 57% said they were exhausted, according to a study by the American Nurses Foundation released in January.

The Maine Med nurses union represents around 2,000 employees. Maine Medical Center, the state’s largest hospital licensed for 700 beds and with more than 9,600 total employees on the payroll, is part of the MaineHealth system.

Clay Holtzman, a spokesman for Maine Medical Center and MaineHealth, told Mainebiz that while he doesn’t have the details of the parental leave benefits covered in the agreement, they are the same as other MaineHealth employees.

Maine Med nurses first voted to form a union in April 2021, then voted to re-certify their union in August 2022.

The contract ratified last year included a 15% across-the-board wage increase over three years, starting with 7% in the first year of the agreement.