SEIU bargaining team members Heather Eggers (L) and Ellie Conway lead a rally on the picket line at Stillwater Medical Group.
United “like never before,” a bargaining unit of 80 workers at HealthPartners Stillwater Medical Group began a four-day strike this morning, escalating their campaign for a new union contract that delivers wage gains and longevity bonuses.
Members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa on strike at SMG include licensed practical nurses, certified medical assistants and other workers in the facility’s family-medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics and specialties departments.
On the picket line, union members said they felt stung by HealthPartners’ decision to fork over money to temporary workers and pay overtime wages, rather than meet their bargaining team halfway and avoid a strike.
Workers voted last month, with near-unanimous support, to authorize a strike. In talks since then, the employer “has barely moved in their proposals,” LPN and bargaining team member Kelly Parent said.
“We tried to come down with our numbers,” CMA Ellie Conway, another member of the bargaining team, added. “Unfortunately, they didn’t reciprocate.”
Heather Eggers, a CMA and union negotiator, said SMG workers have taken on more responsibilities in recent years, as the facility struggled with short staffing. She said HealthPartners needs to offer more than just a “thank you.”
“The cost of living is rising, and we need HealthPartners to step up,” Eggers said. “They keep saying we are working together for the common good. If that’s the case, then why isn’t our leadership working for us, the workers?”
Workers walk the picket line at HealthPartners Stillwater Medical Group.
Although SMG is under the HealthPartners umbrella, workers’ wages and benefits lag behind those earned by many of their peers in the system. SMG workers bargain on their own, outside a larger SEIU contract that covers over two dozen HealthPartners sites in the metro.
“We’re doing the same work for the same company,” said Conway, who has worked at SMG for over five years. “We believe we deserve the same wages and bonuses.”
SMG workers don’t expect to make up the difference with one contract, but Conway said they intend to do better than the “chump change” in HealthPartners’ most recent proposal, which amounts to raises of less than $1 per hour for many in the bargaining unit.
“We refuse to accept that this is the best HealthPartners has to offer us,” she said. “It feels like the money makes its way to corporate leadership but skips right past the front line.”
The unit came into contract negotiations this spring fired up, having beat back an attempt to decertify their union just weeks before bargaining began. Workers voted to keep their union, with 72% support.
“The employer was very vocal in the decertification about how they could work with us so much better without a union,” Conway said. “Fortunately, the members saw through those empty promises.
“Like never before, our union is ready to stand together and demand better working conditions.”
Union members plan to picket from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day of the strike, scheduled to end Friday. SMG is located at 1500 Curve Crest Blvd.
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
Union Advocate 