Nurses at two Aroostook County hospitals are threatening to strike if ongoing contract negotiations remain unresolved.
Registered nurses at Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent and Houlton Regional Hospital in Houlton authorized bargaining teams to call a strike if their contract negotiations with management don’t move forward, according to a Thursday announcement about the vote. They are represented by the Maine State Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee.
There are no dates set yet for a strike.
The vote comes at a larger time of change for the two northern Maine hospitals, which have both eliminated their birthing services in recent years and last spring announced that they were merging their management teams.
The registered nurses at Northern Maine Medical Center joined the union in January 2024 and have been in negotiations with management for 16 months without a contract, said bargaining team member Brad Martinez, who works in the hospital’s emergency room.
“The hospital has been very unreasonable by dragging its feet and not making any real progress on our contract this entire time. We should be much closer to a deal,” Martinez said in a statement. “Nurses voted to strike because the administration at NMMC has not addressed our concerns about safe staffing and fair pay.”
The union contract for nurses at Houlton Regional Hospital expired in November 2024, and they have been working without a contract for nine months, according to the union.
Nurses at both hospitals said they are fighting for patient safety and the ability to recruit and retain nurses.
Hospital administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The stalled negotiation comes after the Maine Department of Labor cited Northern Maine Medical Center in February for 77 regulatory violations, including misclassifying nurses as subcontractors, failing to pay nurses overtime, failing to pay nurses their wages in a timely manner and requiring nurses to sign contracts that exempted the hospital from Maine’s labor laws.
In a settlement agreement with the state, the northern Maine hospital did not admit any wrongdoing, but paid $15,707 directly to three nurses and $8,750 in fines to the State.
Additionally, Houlton Regional Hospital nurses also spoke out in April against the announced closure of the facility’s labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum department. The unit closed on May 2. The 13 affected nurses were absorbed into other hospital positions, the union said at the time.
The labor and delivery unit at Northern Maine Medical Center closed two years ago.In late May, executives at Northern Maine Medical Center — President and CEO Jeff Zewe and Chief Financial Officer Aaron Teachout — took over the management of the Houlton hospital through a one-year agreement. The Fort Kent administrators are in charge of operations at both hospitals, although they operate as independent entities under the direction of their respective boards of trustees.
