Negotiators for six Twin Cities hospital systems and the Minnesota Nurses Association announced Thursday that they reached tentative agreement on what would be a new three-year contract, the Star Tribune reports.

The new contracts that would take effect June 1, 2013, and run through May 31, 2016. The contract covers 11,000 nurses at Allina, Children's, Fairview, HealthEast, North Memorial and Park Nicollet hospitals, the Associated Press reports. They will vote on the agreement Dec. 18-20, the AP says. It would offer nurses a 4.5 percent raise over the three years, the Star Tribune says.

The last time the two sides met to bargain, in 2010, it did not go nearly as smoothly and the nurses came close to striking, MPR reported.