Providers at Allina clinics, urgent cares plan one-day strike Nov. 5

October 24, 2025 by

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

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , ,

Allina primary-care doctors picket: ‘We need a lifeline’

June 3, 2025 by

Members of Doctors Council picket outside Allina Health’s West St. Paul clinic June 3.

Doctors at Allina Health’s clinics and urgent cares formed a union in 2023 to restore their voice in decisions that impact patient care. Today, they took that campaign to the streets, setting up informational picket lines outside four metro-area facilities.

The bargaining unit of 600 doctors, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners took the historic step – they are the first doctors to picket in Minnesota, according to their international union – 15 months into bargaining a first contract with Allina.

On the picket line near the West St. Paul clinic where she practices, Dr. Cora Walsh said union members hoped to show Allina that they aren’t backing down from the demands that sparked their organizing drive.

“We took a professional oath, and we are here today to fight for the tools we need to continue to deliver on that promise,” she said.

For union members, that means adequate staffing in their clinics – not only for practitioners, but also for clinical assistants, nurses, lab workers and others outside their bargaining unit.

It also means having safe workplaces, good wages and benefits, and the time they need to deliver quality care to their patients.

Walsh said too many of her colleagues feel like they are “drowning” in a workload that extends well beyond their clinic’s hours. 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.

“We need a lifeline so we can continue to be there for our patients and attract the next generation of primary-care clinicians,” Walsh said. “We know what we need to make our jobs sustainable. This is why we unionized.”

Since bargaining began in February 2024, the two sides have reached tentative agreements on scheduling procedures, a new mentorship program and labor-management committee, discipline language and safety protections.

But Allina has refused even to discuss issues like clinic staffing, said Dr. Matt Hoffman, who works at the Vadnais Heights clinic. The employer’s economic proposal, meanwhile, would cut union members’ pay at a time when many in the industry are steering away from careers in primary care.

“The contract Allina is offering us will unquestionably worsen primary care,” he said. “In real time, we are watching a nonprofit, charity health system work against its own doctors who are trying to make their profession sustainable.”

Talks around protecting time with patients, Hoffman added, “have gone nowhere,” while Allina executives continue to seek ways to extract more out of practitioners.

In the urgent care where he works, Dr. Dain Meyer said Allina has introduced a troubling new metric to evaluate doctors: patients treated per hour.

“We should be aiming at highest quality and not fastest speed,” he said, adding that it’s “challenging to sort through” the increasingly complex medical issues that doctors are seeing in the urgent care with confidence “when we’re constantly pressed for time.”

Members of the Doctors Council, a Service Employees (SEIU) affiliate, also picketed outside Allina clinics in Bloomington, Coon Rapids and Maplewood this morning. The actions started at 6 a.m. and wrapped up before clinics opened.

For Walsh, it was her first time on a picket line.

“This is not just a job, it’s a calling for us,” she said. “It feels good because we’re fighting for patient care that we know could be better.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Union Events Tagged With: , , ,

Twin Cities doctors, nurses to picket June 3-4 as progress stalls on contract campaigns

May 29, 2025 by

Nurses at United and Children’s hospitals in St. Paul picketed during their 2022 contract campaign. (UA file)

Picket lines are coming to several Minnesota hospitals and clinics next week, as unionized doctors and nurses escalate their contract campaigns at Allina and other local health systems.

Newly organized doctors, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners at Allina Health clinics and urgent cares will hold picketing June 3 from 6 to 7 a.m. at four locations: Bloomington, Coon Rapids, Maplewood and West St. Paul.

It will mark the first time Minnesota doctors have staged informational picketing, members of the Doctors Council, a Service Employees (SEIU) affiliate, said during a virtual press conference yesterday.

“The contract Allina is offering us will unquestionably worsen primary care,” Dr. Matt Hoffman, who practices at Allina’s Vadnais Heights clinic, said.

By picketing, he added, the bargaining unit of over 600 doctors and clinicians hopes to show the public that “we are fighting to make primary care sustainable, and we want the same things as our patients.”

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association will hold informational picketing the following day, June 4, at 17 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth, where the union is bargaining contracts covering more than 15,000 members.

Nurses’ contract demands include minimum staffing levels in their units and other provisions to ensure the safety of both workers and patients. MNA President Chris Rubesch said “shoestring, COVID-era staffing levels” remain in too many Minnesota facilities.

“Nurses are doing everything they can to keep patients safe, but we are being stretched beyond our limits,” he said. “Patients are facing longer waits, and overworked staff are facing dangerous conditions. Nurses are taking action because our health care system cannot afford more delays or excuses.”

Nurses plan to picket at hospitals in the Allina, Children’s Minnesota, HealthPartners, M Health Fairview, North Memorial, Essentia and St. Luke’s systems throughout the day. Supporters are encouraged to sign up to join them on the picket line.

Unionized doctors in the Allina system held a press conference in Minneapolis last fall.

Both the doctors and nurses stressed that they are not striking, and their actions will not interrupt care.

Improving patient care is a top priority for both unions. Doctors and practitioners formed their union in 2023, Hoffman said, to gain back a voice in health care decisions that many felt they had lost at Allina, and that remains an issue “important enough for us to picket over.”

Since the two sides began bargaining a first contract in February 2024, they have reached tentative agreements on scheduling, a new mentorship program and labor-management committee, discipline language and safety protections.

But Allina has refused even to discuss union members’ proposal to ensure adequate staffing among support staff – clinical assistants, nurses, lab workers and others – in their clinics. And union members want more assurances that they will have adequate time to devote both to their patients and the ancillary tasks their profession requires, like paperwork, trainings and meetings.

Dr. Dain Meyer said Allina has introduced a troubling new metric to evaluate the urgent-care clinic where he works: patients treated per hour. “We should be aiming at highest quality and not fastest speed,” he said.

“I feel like progress has stalled (in bargaining), and I’m picketing to draw attention to this so that, in the same way we support our patients in the clinic, they might support us in winning the changes we all need,” Meyer added.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,