Registered nurses at the Allina Health Cancer Institute voted yesterday to form a union, joining together to push back against changes that, nurses say, have put patient safety – and their professional licenses – at risk.
The bargaining unit brings together 21 nurses at AHCI facilities on three Allina hospital campuses, United in St. Paul, Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis and Mercy in Coon Rapids.
Nurses voted 17-2 in favor of joining the Minnesota Nurses Association, the union of 22,000 health care professionals. Nicole Novak, an oncology infusion nurse AHCI’s Minneapolis facility, called it “a huge victory” in nurses’ fight for patient safety.
“With all these budget cuts, it feels like the priority has been taken off of patient safety and on how we can help Allina financially,” she said in a video posted on social media to announce the election results.
Allina Health launched its cancer services facilities in 2021.
Since then, AHCI nurses “have helped grow these clinics and developed lasting relationships” with fellow care team members, patients and their families, Lisa Fox said. But the St. Paul-based oncology nurse described a downside to AHCI’s growth.
“We have seen growth lead to unclear policies and procedures that could threaten the health and safety of our patients, along with our licenses and our livelihoods,” Fox said. “Inadequate patient-nurse ratios have led to burnout that many other health care workers are all too familiar with.”
AHCI nurses said they got serious about forming a union after management brushed aside their concerns about abrupt changes to the workflow in AHCI facilities resulting from consolidations across the Allina hospital system.
According to nurses, Allina began routing non-oncology patients – including pregnant people – to AHCI facilities for care after executives closed Abbott Northwestern’s inpatient infusion center. AHCI oncology nurses like Kate Spitzer worried they lacked the guidance, training and equipment to safely care for the new patients.
“When we brought those concerns to management, we were told they were building the plane as they were flying it, and that we’d be failing forward together,” Spitzer said.
AHCI nurses filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 24.
When negotiations on a first contract begin, the new union members intend to advocate for fairer schedules and safe nurse-to-patient ratios, as well as policies that protect and value nurses’ professional judgment.
“We want our patients to be safe,” Spitzer said. “We want our licenses to be safe. We want to have a good work-life balance. We want to continue to do the work that we’re so passionate about.”
AHCI nurses are the second group of Allina Health workers to form a union with MNA in the last year, joining the system’s sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) employees, who formed a union in September 2023.
Union Advocate 