Maine Medical Center announced Friday that it amended its collective bargaining agreement with nurses to include a variety of paid leaves that weren't addressed during contract negotiations.
The amendment includes paid parental, bereavement, jury duty, witness and military leaves. The benefits will be retroactive to last December. That's when nurses alleged that the hospital illegally eliminated those benefits as retaliation for forming a union.
At the time, hospital officials said the nurses union had failed to offer proposals for paid leave during contract talks.
In a statement Friday, Maine Medical Center's chief nursing officer, Devin Carr, said addressing contract concerns "is critically important, particularly as we are just beginning to administer our first contract.”
The contract was finalized last September after more than a year of negotiations.
