About 100 union nurses and supporters gathered outside Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor Friday to rally for safe working conditions amid monthslong contract negotiations with the hospital system.
Central to the union’s agenda are demands for enforced patient-nurse ratios that nurses say they need to combat rising workplace violence.
“There is, I think, more violence in our profession than there ever was,” EMMC labor and delivery nurse Erin Oberson told the Bangor Daily News at the rally. “It happens nearly daily.”
Negotiations have been ongoing since July, according to Northern Light, as the health care system works to recover from years of financial struggles. The system closed its Waterville hospital and lost $15 million last year, down from $156 million in 2024.
Deb Sanford, chief nursing officer for Northern Light EMMC, said the health system “is committed to engaging in good faith bargaining” with state and national nurses unions.
“We are focused on reaching a fair contract agreement that reflects the importance of our nurses’ role in delivering safe, high-quality care to our patients and accounts for the current and future realities of healthcare in Maine,” Sanford said.
The contract with the nurses’ union expired Nov. 21, 2025, and talks have continued since, a Northern Light spokesperson said on Wednesday, also noting that the nurses in attendance at Friday’s picket were not on duty.
In addition to established patient-nurse ratios, the union is also pushing for increased screening for weapons and better safety protections, including a metal detector at the hospital’s front entrance, Oberson said, adding that these increased protections would help both nurses and patients.
Demonstrators on Friday carried a mix of printed and hand-made signs with messages such as “safe staffing & fair pay” and “protect patients, trust nurses.” Some also wore shirts that read, “we will strike for our patients.”
They first gathered at State Street’s Cascade Park before marching to and from the hospital up the street, drawing many honks of support from passing cars.
City Councilor Daniel Carson, who works as a labor organizer with unions around the state, joined Friday’s picket to support Bangor’s nurses.
“We’ve been fighting for safe staffing ratios in the state, in the Legislature,” Carson said, “and to me that’s important because we’re all going to need that care, and when we need that care, we need nurses who are empowered to be by our bedside.”
Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee represents 900 EMMC nurses, according to the union.