Allina doctors held informational picketing outside the West St. Paul clinic in June 2025.
The union of over 600 primary care providers at Allina Health clinics and urgent cares will hold a historic, one-day strike Nov. 5 unless negotiators make significant progress in two bargaining sessions scheduled before then.
The strike would be the largest among private practitioners in U.S. history, according to Doctors Council – SEIU. It would impact services at 61 facilities across the Twin Cities area.
In a press call today, union leaders said Allina’s refusal even to bargain over several of their members’ key demands – pay and benefit guarantees, enough time to deliver quality care, adequate staffing levels in their clinics – drove the decision to call a strike.
“If we don’t do this, we’re looking at taking what Allina is offering,” Dr. Matt Hoffman, a family doctor at the Vadnais Heights clinic, said. “If we do that, we are going to see primary care continue to get worse at Allina.
“We love being doctors. We love caring for our patients. But we have seen so many of our colleagues leave primary care, so many burn out… We cannot let that cycle continue.”
Union members voted in June to authorize their elected leaders to call a strike if necessary, with over 90% support. In conversations since, Hoffman said, a “very strong majority” of members have pledged to honor the picket line.
“A lot of us are just at our breaking points collectively, and we feel like we have done everything we can to avoid getting to this point,” Dr. Nick VenOsdel, a pediatrician at the Hastings clinic, said. “The time to fight is now.”
The bargaining unit brings together doctors, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners who voted overwhelmingly to unionize with Doctors Council – SEIU in October 2023.
Since bargaining over a first contract began in February 2024, the two sides have met over 60 times and reached tentative agreements on scheduling procedures, a new mentorship program and labor-management committee, discipline language and safety protections.
But providers say they won’t settle for a contract that fails to address the factors behind increased burnout in their ranks, and they won’t go backwards economically while Allina’s executive pay continues to soar.
Union members want protected time to devote to administrative tasks, training, communication and other responsibilities, so that they don’t come at a cost to quality care in the exam room. Providers are increasingly handling those tasks after work hours – in “pajama time,” Dr. Cora Walsh said.
“There’s not been a real recognition of how our work has ballooned over the last decade,” the West St. Paul provider added.
Doctors are also fighting for contract language that would ensure minimum staffing levels in their facilities – not only for themselves, but also for clinical assistants, nurses, lab workers and other positions outside their bargaining unit.
Allina recently sold off its lab facilities and cut X-ray services, and its plan to close four clinics Nov. 1 has already begun further straining the system – and patient care, Walsh said.
“We know what it takes to make primary care sustainable and provide the quality care our patients deserve,” Walsh said. “This is what we’re fighting for at the bargaining table.”
Barring a breakthrough in talks, Doctors Council plans to begin striking at 7 a.m. Nov. 5 and return to work at 7 a.m. the following day. The union will drive turnout to picket lines at three clinics: West St. Paul, Richfield and Coon Rapids.
“We do not want to be away from caring for our patients, to put our patients in that position,” Walsh said. “But this is what Allina has forced us to do to be sure Allina will be there for our patients.”
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
Union Advocate 