The union representing nurses working at Oakland County Children’s Village issued a statement opposing plans to move the nurses to the health department.

Since 2021, the Michigan Association of Public Employees has represented six full-time nurses at Children’s Village and, in a separate bargaining unit, a nurse supervisor. The remaining Children’s Village nurses work part time and are not part of the collective bargaining unit, according to MAPE spokesman Ken Mercer.

MAPE officials indicated they may take legal action against the county should the plan move forward.

MAPE’s statement said it’s discriminatory, anti-union conduct for the county to move the nurses to health department positions, which requires creating new health department positions and eliminating the current Children’s Village jobs. All the nurses have been asked to reapply for their jobs, but nurses who don’t have bachelor’s degrees would have to agree to get the additional education within 18 months.

Any of the nurses hired for the health department would continue working at Children’s Village, under the county’s plan. They can apply for different positions within the health department as well, according to County Commission Chairman Dave Woodward.

“We are giving people time,” Woodward said. “This is not something we’re doing next week. We’re phasing it in until July 11 and allowing people to choose if this is a role they want or do they want to be somewhere else. I hope they want to be part of Oakland County’s team providing an essential service to our community.”

MAPE called the Children’s Village nurses qualified, talented and special people that take pride in their work and specifically want to deal with the teenaged residents.

“Education alone cannot replace the valuable experience acquired over years of service,” MAPE’s statement read.

The union criticized Lee-Ann Stafford, the county’s health and human services director, for changing the existing requirements for the nurses.

The union also raised concerns that the Children’s Village nurses hired by the health department will lose seniority when jobs some have had for decades are eliminated. And new health department nursing positions will be at entry-level seniority, according to the union.

“There is no promise that they will be retained; nor is there any justifiable reason to require the termination of qualified personnel, just to have them offensively and punitively reapply for their own positions,” MAPE stated, adding that two of the nurses are older than 50, not eligible for retirement but not in a position to pursue a bachelor’s degree.

“The County glibly and cruelly states that these nurses can apply for different positions within the system,” MAPE’s statement read, adding that some of those positions pay as much as $9 an hour less than what they’re now paid.

The union’s request to allow the nurses to transfer to the health department with their seniority and degree status grandfathered in has been rejected by the county, according to MAPE.

Woodward said the nurses will maintain seniority as a group, but existing health department nurses will have bumping-rights priorities.

“We have a health department with (bachelor-degree) standards,” Woodward said. “We’re not going to compromise that.”

He said the bachelor-degree requirement helped the health department receive the Public Health Accreditation Board accreditation, considered a standard of excellence.

The county commission failed to approve the move on March 18 but Woodward said the issue will likely be on the board’s next agenda. The next meeting is 6 p.m. Thursday, April 10 in the commissioners auditorium, 1200 N. Telegraph Road in Pontiac.

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