BANGOR (AP) – The union representing nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center dropped its strike threat, even as an emergency bargaining session failed to resolve a stalemate over a proposal that would give nurses a greater say on issues such as staffing and technology.

Negotiators for the Maine State Nurses Association on Tuesday withdrew the formal 10-day notice of their intention to strike that was issued the previous day.

While the union said there could be a one-day strike, EMMC officials urged the union to allow nurses to vote on the hospital’s final contract offer before ordering a walkout.

Nurses have been working without a contract since their three-year agreement expired at midnight Sunday. The two sides met with a federal mediator Tuesday, and another such meeting has been set for Oct. 23.

The chief stumbling block is the configuration of a “professional practice committee” that would give nurses a stronger voice on staffing, technology and other issues.

At Tuesday’s bargaining session, the union revised its proposal by removing a contentious section that would have required a third-party arbitrator to intervene if the hospital disagreed with the committee’s recommendations.

The MSNA’s new proposal limited the makeup of the committee to direct-care nurses only, as the union has demanded all along, but offered formalized quarterly meetings with nurse managers to discuss recommendations before sending them to the chief nursing officer.

The hospital had proposed that the committee be split evenly between direct-care nurses and nurse managers, with nurse managers responsible for communicating recommendations directly to the administration.

In rejecting the union’s proposal Tuesday, the hospital said in a statement that its “last, best and final offer” remains on the table.

That offer was rejected Sunday, two days after a union strike authorization vote. With about two-thirds of the unit’s 870 members voting, 92 percent voted to give MSNA negotiators the power to call a strike. That authority remains in place, and MSNA Unit 1 President Judy Brown said Tuesday there’s no plan to bring the vote to nurses again.

“They’ve already voted. We have the authority we need,” she said.

Greg Howat, the hospital’s chief negotiator and vice president for human resources, claimed that the vote was premature.

“We’re hearing from our nurses that they’d love to have a chance to vote on (the contract) again because they’re in favor of it,” he said.

Howat reiterated the hospital’s discomfort with the MSNA’s recent affiliation with the California Nurses Association, which is widely regarded as having backed first-in-the-nation legislation in that state that established mandated nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. Maine hospitals worked aggressively to defeat similar legislation when it was proposed in Augusta.

Brown said informational sessions for EMMC nurses will be held Thursday, but declined to say whether the union will issue another strike notice. By law, the union must give the hospital a 10-day notice before a planned walkout.

Howat acknowledged that a strike would be expensive for the hospital, but that it was prepared to deal such an eventuality by bringing in outside nurses, if necessary.

“But we’re more concerned about the long-term intended or unintended consequences” of the MSNA proposal, he said. “We expect that whatever’s in that contract will be there a long, long time.”

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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

AP-ES-10-03-07 0854EDT