LEWISTON (WGME) — Nurses at Central Maine Medical Center are set to decide whether or not to unionize.<\/p>\n
The high-stakes vote comes just days after 20 nurses were suddenly fired or suspended.<\/p>\n
If Thursday night’s vote passes, CMMC nurses will officially join the Maine State Nurses Association, gaining the leverage of a union that represents more than 4,000 healthcare workers across the state.<\/p>\n
But the atmosphere leading up to Thursday night\u2019s ballot has been tense.<\/p>\n
Hospital officials confirm that 15 nurses have been fired and five suspended over the last week.<\/p>\n
CMMC’s parent company, Prime Healthcare, insists the discipline was strictly for code of conduct violations, rather than retaliation.<\/p>\n
However, federal lawmakers are already stepping in.<\/p>\n
Wednesday, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree sharply criticized the hospital\u2019s actions, labeling them as “illegal union busting.”<\/p>\n
Union organizers confirm they intend to move forward with unfair labor practice charges against Prime Healthcare, no matter the election’s outcome.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline issued a statement Thursday showing solidarity.<\/p>\n
“The entire Lewiston community is proud to stand behind the nurses at CMMC and their right to unionize.”<\/p>\n
Voting has been underway all day.<\/p>\n
Results are expected to be announced around 9:30 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEWISTON (WGME) — Nurses at Central Maine Medical Center are set to decide whether or not to unionize.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-859759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}