Strike ends as Hazelden nurses ratify historic contract with safety guarantees

July 30, 2026 by

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association vote on the proposed contract with Hazelden.

Nurses ended their strike at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s Center City campus this week, settling a first contract that, union members say, will address concerns that sparked their historic organizing campaign.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association’s bargaining unit – about 60 nurses in all – voted to ratify the contract today. Union negotiators reached a tentative agreement with Hazelden on Tuesday.

That brought a halt to picketing outside the prestigious addiction-treatment facility that began July 15 and persisted through steamy temperatures, smoky air and gridlock at the bargaining table.

That resolve sent a strong message to management, members of the bargaining team said.

“It was taxing physically, financially, mentally and sometimes spiritually, but the best thing about it was we were really able to bond on that line,” Anne Coleman, a registered nurse at Hazelden for the last two years, said. “And not only did we bond, but we were able to have our voices heard, which we know has not been the case consistently for years and years – especially around security and safety.

“This was historic, and I’m really proud of our team.”

Indeed, nurses at the Chisago County campus became the first anywhere across Hazelden Betty Ford’s system to win a union contract, and one of their key gains – providing staff with panic buttons – will extend to nurses and other caregivers nationwide, veteran registered nurse Jody Burton said.

“It’s going to be in California, Chicago, Florida – it’s a huge win,” Burton said. “From Day 1, they were like, ‘No, this (safety language) is never going to be part of your contract.’ But we won it, and we won it for everyone. We’re a powerful team.”

The contract establishes a firm deadline for management to implement panic buttons and other workplace safety measures. Nurses also pushed Hazelden to staff their rural facility with security or safety personnel, and the employer committed to “a contractual pathway to implement safety staff,” according to MNA.

Safety emerged as a top issue in negotiations for union members, who pointed to the increased abuse of highly potent drugs, like fentanyl, among their patients. MNA pulled public data that found county sheriff’s deputies responded to nearly three calls each week, on average, to the Center City campus between Jan. 1, 2025, and July 19, 2026.

Coleman called the contract “a move in the right direction that I don’t think would have happened if we had not gone on strike,” and she pledged that the union would “keep promoting and advocating for safety protocols to help us do our jobs.”

“And it’s not just about the nurses,” she added. “I think about the techs who have been in verbal and physical altercations. I think about the other nurses who have been kicked, punched, spit on. I think about the other patients who are terrified by a psychosis event. In a highly emotional, stressful environment, there should be better safeguards, and this contract is leading that way.”

The contract also delivers economic gains and puts nurses’ health-insurance benefits in writing, protecting against the kind of sudden, arbitrary cuts that many Hazelden employees experienced two years ago – and provided the spark for nurses to form a union with MNA.

Additionally, nurses gained recognition of their full bargaining unit, including casual and on-call nurses. Hazelden fought to divide the unit during their organizing drive, forcing two separate union elections, both of which were successful.

Now, Burton said, nurses are eager to get back to work and back to their patients. The financial strain of going on strike was significant for many union members, she added.

“But you could never tell by the way people showed up on the line with their family, shouting and screaming and digging in their feet,” Burton said. “We would have fought longer if we’d have had to.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Hazelden nurses ‘not backing down’ as strike enters second week

July 23, 2026 by

Nurses speak with press after bargaining with Hazelden in St. Paul Tuesday.

Nurses bargaining a first union contract with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation launched an open-ended strike July 15 at the renowned addiction-treatment facility in Center City, and their picket line remains up after two bargaining sessions this week.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) voted to authorize a strike nearly a year into negotiations. Nurses have filed multiple unfair-labor-practice complaints during that time, accusing Hazelden of making unilateral changes to working conditions without bargaining and attempting to prevent workers from protected union activity.

But nurses also say that, at the bargaining table, Hazelden has refused to address the issues behind their vote to unionize in January 2025, including workplace safety, competitive wages and benefits, and improved working conditions that they need to care for patients with increasingly complex needs.

“We keep coming with a new solution that they’re immediately shutting down,” Jody Burton, a registered nurse with nearly 11 years of experience at Hazelden, said. “We come with a different solution; they shut it down. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now, and they don’t ever bring a solution to the table.”

Burton and other members of MNA’s bargaining team have been traveling to negotiations in St. Paul – nearly an hour’s drive from their workplace in Center City – at Hazelden’s request.

Back in Chisago County, members of the 60-person bargaining unit are keeping an active picket line up at the intersection of U.S. Highway 8 and Pleasant Valley Road, near the entrance to Hazelden’s main campus. (Support is welcome on the picket line; follow MNA’s social media for updates.)

“We literally have had people on the lines in the hottest days, in bad quality air,” Burton said. “We haven’t budged. We are still strong, still energized, and we will still be there every day that (management) are not willing to negotiate because we are fighting for a reason – for our patients to have a safe place to change.”

Hazelden nurses picket in Center City.

But safety has been a sticking point in contract negotiations between MNA and Hazelden.

At a time when healthcare workers nationwide are expressing concerns about workplace safety, Hazelden nurses are increasingly treating patients under the influence of highly potent drugs like fentanyl. Nurses say the de-escalation tactics that they are trained to use when a patient becomes violent are insufficient alone.

In bargaining, nurses have floated proposals like round-the-clock security, panic buttons and minimum staffing levels to protect patients, caregivers and visitors. Hazelden has responded that a greater security presence is incompatible with its care environment, according to union members.

“Some of us who have been at Hazelden for decades, we’ve seen a shift in the patients that we take in, and with that shift comes a lot of violence,” Burton said. “We may not have needed those (protections) five, seven or 10 years ago, but we need them now.”

But on Day 1 of the strike, nurses were quick to notice that security personnel crossed their picket line to support replacement nurses – “the same security protections nurses have been bargaining for over the past year but still have not received,” bargaining team member Ann Coleman said.

“Temporary nursing staff have security, and we don’t. Let that sink in,” Coleman added. “Safety isn’t a luxury, and it’s not optional – and it shouldn’t be something nurses have to fight for.”

MNA and Hazelden are scheduled to resume bargaining tomorrow, and they have another session scheduled July 28. Coleman said the strike won’t end until management comes ready to “bargain with purpose.”

“We’re not backing down,” she added.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Workers lead push for community guarantees before potential Allina, North Memorial sales

July 14, 2026 by

Health care workers line the entrance to a public hearing in St. Paul on the proposed Sutter-Allina sale.

Unionized healthcare workers are leading a campaign to secure binding commitments from two large, out-of-state health care systems looking to expand their reach in Minnesota, seeking guarantees around patient access, workplace standards, use of artificial intelligence and other issues.

A coalition of labor, faith-based and community organizations want so-called “community benefits agreements,” or CBAs, in place before two proposed acquisitions that, if approved by the state, would reshape the local healthcare sector: Sutter Health’s takeover of Allina Health and Sanford’s acquisition of North Memorial.

Advocates made the case for CBAs at public hearings last month held by Attorney General Keith Ellison, after their efforts to engage directly with executives at Sutter and Sanford stalled.

Wanda Malden, a member of the faith group ISAIAH, said executives at California-based Sutter Health appeared not to take workers and patients’ request for a CBA seriously.

“We sent them a letter last week, and just this weekend they wrote back a letter that said, basically, that we should trust them,” Malden said outside Ellison’s July 13 hearing into the Sutter-Allina deal in St. Paul.

But several current Sutter workers, who traveled from northern California to Minnesota for the hearing, warned union and community members here to be cautious with their trust. Sarah Pineda, a surgery scheduler and member of the Service Employees (SEIU-UHW), said her union sees “daily violations” of their contract at Sutter’s eight unionized facilities.

“This is a giant that you are going to be battling,” Pineda told Minnesota workers. “It is very important that you guys get that community benefits agreement because you are going to need it.”

Sutter Health worker Sarah Pineda traveled from northern California to attend the hearing.

Legislation passed in 2023 gives the Attorney General’s Office authority to block large sales or mergers of healthcare systems if it determines the transaction is “contrary to the public interest.”

The easiest way Sutter and Sanford can allay doubts that their expansion plans are in the public interest, union members said, is by signing onto CBAs.

“Union workers know that words don’t mean anything until they are written down and agreed upon by both sides, which is all we are asking for,” SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa member Kia Pulle said.

Advocates said CBAs are rare in the healthcare sector but have been used in publicly funded developments like stadiums. With mergers and consolidation on the rise in the industry – and with data suggesting the result is often higher costs, lower quality of care and reductions in service – CBAs offer a voice in the process to those too often left out.

Dr. Matt Hoffman, a member of Doctors Council SEIU who practices at Allina’s clinic in Vadnais Heights, called on Sutter to negotiate a CBA that guarantees it won’t “jack up prices.” He said it should also protect quality patient care, safeguard union rights and benefits, and deliver meaningful investment in the community – instead of closing more birthing centers, clinics and hospital wards in the Allina system.

“If a California company is coming to our town to run our health care, at the very least we need a signed, guaranteed community benefits agreement that will make sure every Minnesotan has access to excellent, affordable health care,” Hoffman added.

South Dakota-based Sanford Health, meanwhile, has made some commitments in advance of its proposed acquisition of North Memorial, which employs over 6,500 people at two hospitals and several clinics in the Minneapolis suburbs.

Sanford signed a letter of understanding with the Minnesota Nurses Association covering members at North Memorial’s long-unionized Robbinsdale hospital to protect their contract and pension benefits. Sanford also agreed to honor a contract at the Maple Grove hospital, where nearly 600 nurses voted to unionize last year but are still bargaining a first contract.

Allina nurse Karen Norman urged Sutter to reach a similar agreement with MNA and other unions – but also to work toward a CBA that protects all workers and patients.

“Minnesotans deserve health systems that realize serving patients and communities is more important than serving corporate bottom lines and bloated bonuses,” Norman said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Nurses picket as Hazelden Betty Ford drags out first-contract talks

June 5, 2026 by

MNA members picket outside Hazelden Betty Ford’s facility in Center City.

Nurses bargaining a first union contract with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation held informational picketing June 2 at the renowned addiction-treatment facility in Center City, looking to raise awareness of their safety and staffing concerns.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association had hoped Hazelden administrators would take a collaborative approach to addressing the issues behind their vote to unionize in January 2025.

But those hopes have fizzled over 16 months of mostly unproductive talks.

“A lot of things that we propose, they’ll propose back that they don’t need it to be written out,” Cara Bergner, a registered nurse in Hazelden’s detox unit, said on the picket line. “They just want it up to management’s discretion, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the contract.

“I think their hopes are that if they put it off, we’ll get tired and give up. But I don’t see that being the case.”

Anne Coleman, another registered nurse in the detox unit, said nurses are bargaining for changes that will make their jobs more sustainable – and they’re doing it because they believe in the Hazelden Betty Ford mission.

“We take people in a crisis situation who, a lot of the time, come in very broken, and I just love to see them get their lives back, to get the confidence and light back in their eyes,” Coleman said. “I love to see them heal.

“We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t love the mission, the patients and the many things that Hazelden has done for the community and nationwide. But the healthcare system itself is broken, and, unfortunately, it’s trickled down to Hazelden.”

As the rate of violence against healthcare workers rises nationwide, Hazelden nurses are increasingly treating patients under the influence of highly potent drugs like fentanyl. Union members say de-escalation tactics, which they are trained to use when a patient becomes violent, are insufficient alone.

“We’re bringing in higher-acuity, more severe cases of people who have mental-health issues and severe addictions,” Bergner said. “We don’t have any other safeguards (besides de-escalation) and any true, straightforward protocols for staff members’ safety.”

In bargaining, nurses have floated proposals like round-the-clock security, panic buttons and minimum staffing levels. Some units, Bergner and Coleman said, have just one nurse on the floor at times, leaving staff overwhelmed.

Perhaps predictably, an increasing number of Hazelden nurses are leaving the bedside. Turnover has affected about a third of MNA’s 60-person bargaining unit of registered and licensed practical nurses, according to the union.

Coleman said factors behind the attrition include stagnant wages over the last two years, recent benefit cuts and management’s unwillingness to agree to measures that would make nurses feel safer and more supported on the job.

Newly hired nurses are leaving too. “They come here,” Bergner said, “and before they really get a love for the job, they’re like, ‘This space is crazy.’”

For nurses who remain, the turnover creates more short staffing and extends their shifts. Coleman said she has worked as many as 16 hours straight.

“I’m happy to do it because I want my patients to have the support they need and the safety,” she said. “However, it’s not sustainable.

“We’ve got so many experienced nurses who really, truly care for our patients that we’ve lost. All that we’re asking is for Hazelden to work with us.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

MN nurses make contract gains despite headwinds

July 24, 2025 by

Nurses picket outside United and Children’s hospitals in St. Paul during their 2025 contract campaign.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association who work at 11 hospitals in the Twin Cities area voted this month to ratify new union contracts that will provide some stability as health systems navigate historic federal funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax-cut bill.

Metro nurses settled with their hospitals after a marathon bargaining session that ended July 3, as Republicans in Congress were falling in line behind a bill expected to slash over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, both critical sources of revenue for hospitals.

The timing was no coincidence, according to Fairview Southdale nurse Rachel Andersen, a member of her bargaining unit’s negotiations team and vice president of National Nurses United.

“When we found out that awful bill was passed, it was like the rug was pulled from under us,” she said. “We had to pivot, to figure out where do we go from here and what’s in our nurses’ best interests.”

Still, the contracts include several gains for metro nurses, including 10% raises over the next three years, new tools to address workplace violence and requirements that hospitals provide coverage for nurses when they go on breaks, which will become mandatory under a new state law.

Beginning Jan. 1, employers must allow employees scheduled for six or more consecutive hours a break of at least 30 minutes. Currently, employees working eight or more consecutive hours must be permitted”sufficient time to eat a meal.”

It’s not the strict staffing minimums that MNA members have been lobbying for over the last two decades, but forcing hospitals to build break nurses into their staffing will help address burnout, Andersen said.

“It’s going to be such a relief because one of our biggest points of burnout is when we work 8-, 10-, 12-hour shifts but the hospital does not have any procedures for how we’re going to get our breaks,” she said. “In the ICU, I have to take four patients who are on life support to give my co-worker a break, and obviously that is not a safe situation. Then I have to find another nurse to do the same thing when it’s my turn.

“Now we’ll have nurses scheduled to come in and provide us with those breaks, so you can eat your lunch and rest and get off your feet.”

Nothing came easy for MNA members in this round of negotiations, but Andersen said union members’ willingness to show support for their bargaining team – at informational picketing June 4 and, later that month, in a strike-authorization vote – put pressure on the hospitals to compromise.

“It took eight or nine sessions for them to come to the table with the intent to productively bargain,” Andersen said. “After our informational picket, the next day we got more dates to bargain. After our strike vote, that was the first time they passed a meaningful economic package to us.”

MNA President Chris Rubesch said the union isn’t giving up on the fight for staffing minimums that ensure safe patient care. He noted that this was the first round of bargaining in which MNA members voted safe staffing as their No. 1 priority, over wages.

“We’ve been fighting an uphill battle,” he said. “The campaign may be over for now in the Metro, but the fight for safe staffing and patient care is far from over.”

This article appeared in The Union Advocate’s August 2025 issue.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

GOP’s Medicaid cuts would raise costs for everyone, union report finds

June 18, 2025 by

Kerry Adelmann, a home care worker and member of SEIU Healthcare MN & IA, shared what Medicaid cuts would mean to her family. Health care workers joined community and faith leaders today on the Capitol steps in St. Paul to demand Republicans in Congress walk back historic cuts to Medicaid included in their budget bill, which President Trump wants on his desk by July 4. 

Meanwhile, a new analysis from the AFL-CIO warns those cuts will make health care less affordable not just for the 7.8 million people projected to lose their benefits, but also for the 179 million Americans with employer-sponsored health coverage – by as much as $485 annually per person. 

That’s because, experts say, people without insurance still get sick, but they are more likely to show up in urgent-care clinics and emergency rooms, driving up costs across the health care system. 

“They’re going to go without care until they have to show up to the hospitals that are required to provide that emergency care,” Jessica Intermill, an activist with Protect Our Care Minnesota, said. “But if this big, bad-for-Americans bill passes, those hospitals and doctors won’t get paid for their work. 

“You can’t stop paying for $700 billion worth of care in the United States without a catastrophic impact.” 

That’s the amount by which the House version of the bill, passed last month, would cut Medicaid. A Senate version that cleared a key committee hurdle earlier this week would make even deeper cuts, forcing difficult decisions onto hospitals and state governments in order to close the gap. 

Rachel Anderson is a vice president of National Nurses United.The Walz administration projects that Minnesota will lose about $500 million in Medicaid funding annually under the GOP budget. 

The state’s Medicaid director, John Connolly, said the bill advancing through the Senate would be “even worse,” with new paperwork requirements and other administrative hurdles that will make it harder for eligible people to access – and maintain – benefits. 

“Disenrollment,” Connolly added, is very much the point of the legislation, which aims to “shrink the number of people with Medicaid coverage, regardless of their need or eligibility status.” 

In addition to making health care less affordable, the Republican budget is likely to spark widespread job losses as states and hospitals look to absorb the loss of federal funds.  

More than 600,000 front-line health care workers could be fired, the AFL-CIO analysis found, and funding for other state-budget priorities, like schools, public safety and infrastructure projects, could be in jeopardy. 

If there’s good news to be found in the Republicans’ so-called “big, beautiful bill,” it comes for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, who will overwhelmingly benefit from the $3.7 trillion tax cut paid for by slashing Medicaid and food assistance. 

“There is nothing beautiful about this bill,” said Rachel Anderson, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association who works at Fairview Southdale. “And there is one big reason why nurses oppose it: Medicaid cuts kill people.” 

 — Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Chris Rubesch: We need all workers to stand with us against Essentia

May 23, 2025 by

MNA President Chris Rubesch spoke at a contract rally in Duluth May 22. (MNA photo)

This spring, over 15,000 nurses across Minnesota are in contract negotiations with hospitals. In these negotiations – but, in particular, negotiations in Duluth – something far more serious is happening. Essentia Health executives aren’t just resisting fair staffing levels and workplace protections; they are testing how far they can go in undermining a unionized workforce.

Let’s be clear: if Essentia gets away with it here, they will do it anywhere. And so will every other employer that is watching these tactics with great interest from the sidelines.

This is about more than nurse staffing. It’s about whether working people in Minnesota still have the power to shape their jobs, their safety and their futures.

At a time when corporate CEOs are riding high on record profits and federal protections for workers are under threat, Essentia’s aggressive stance is a signal. Their executives think this is the moment to turn back the clock, to roll back union gains, to break the model of solidarity that Minnesota labor has fought for decades to build.

We can’t let them.

A win here doesn’t just mean safer hospitals and clinics. It means showing that no employer is too big, too remote or too powerful to be held accountable. It means proving that unions still have teeth – that we can still organize, still bargain and still fight for what’s right.

Safe staffing saves lives. So does a strong union movement. And right now, those two things are one and the same. When nurses fight for staffing levels, we’re fighting for patients. When we fight for union rights, we’re fighting for every worker whose boss is hoping they stay quiet.

So if you’re in the trades, on the line, in a classroom or at the counter – this fight is yours, too. Come to a picket. Talk to your neighbors. Tell Essentia – and every CEO like theirs – that Minnesota doesn’t let corporations call all the shots.

If they can win here, they can win anywhere. But only if we let them.

– Chris Rubesch is president of the Minnesota Nurses Association. Stay up to date on ways to support nurses in your community at mnnurses.org.

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

Joining MNA a ‘proud moment’ for Hazelden Betty Ford nurses

February 4, 2025 by

Newly unionized Hazelden staff members include (L to R) Jody Burton, an LPN, and registered nurses Crystal Olson and Meaghan Albrecht. (photo courtesy MNA)

Nurses at the esteemed Hazelden Betty Ford addiction treatment center in Chisago County voted to unionize last month, part of a recent organizing surge among health care workers in the Twin Cities area.

The new bargaining unit at Hazelden brings together 45 registered nurses and 11 licensed practical nurses, who voted in separate elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board to join the Minnesota Nurses Association. About 75% of voting nurses supported the union drive.

Detox nurse Meaghan Albrecht called the union vote a “proud moment” for the tight-knit unit at Hazelden’s Center City campus, where nurses moved quickly to form a bargaining unit in response to benefit cuts announced by management last fall.

“Everyone cares deeply for each other and our patients, so it was not difficult to be unified, especially since this change was so significant and impacted so many people within our department,” Albrecht said. “Even those nurses who were not directly affected were impacted by the loss of morale on the team.”

Albrecht, who has worked at Hazelden for over six years, was among roughly 130 employees at the facility who were poised to lose their health care and other benefits after management moved to exclude anyone working under a .75 full-time equivalent (FTE), up from .6 previously.

The announcement caught Albrecht and other nurses off guard. They reconnected with the MNA, which had supported an organizing drive two years earlier that fizzled out before reaching an election.

This time around, Hazelden nurses saw the process through the finish line, and they will soon begin locking down their benefits – among other terms of employment – in the form of a union contract.

“Having MNA representing us gives us a seat at the table so we can make decisions about our wages, benefits, and safe working conditions,” Hazelden LPN Jody Burton said.

Minnesota-based Hazelden merged with the Betty Ford Center in 2014 to create the nation’s largest nonprofit alcohol and drug rehab provider.

The foundation was not supportive of nurses’ organizing campaign, Albrecht said.

“There were a lot of meetings held and discussions with the nursing team regarding the ‘negative impact’ that a union would bring to the organization,” she said. “They felt as though it would sever relationships, and they did not like the idea of a third party coming in.

“But we are the union. The nurses brought it in. We aren’t a third party.”

As Hazelden nurses’ focus shifts from organizing to bargaining a first contract, they will focus on fairness, inclusivity and transparency in the workplace, Albrecht said, as well as longstanding concerns around sustainable workloads.

“One of our goals is to foster meaningful dialogue with Hazelden management to create policies that prioritize staff well-being and patient care,” she said. “We think this is an opportunity to build a more just environment for nurses and patients alike.”

Nearly 700 health care workers in the Twin Cities area have organized unions in the last two months, led by a landmark victory for the MNA at North Memorial’s Maple Grove Hospital.

The total also includes nurses at Hazelden and 16 catheter-lab nurses at United Hospital, who organized with the MNA. And it includes members of the nursing staff at The Emeralds of St. Paul, a long-term care facility operated by Monarch Healthcare Management, where the union vote was a unanimous 27-0 in favor of joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.

Nearly 100 more health care workers – unit coordinators at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park – were scheduled to take a union vote Feb. 7, after a majority of eligible workers filed a petition to join SEIU Healthcare.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , ,

Health care unions back debt reform push in MN Legislature

April 22, 2024 by

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association support a bill that would reform laws around medical and other types of debt.

Jennifer Schultz has been cancer free for over two years, but being free from the debt she’s amassed in her battles with the illness feels a long way off for the four-time survivor from St. Paul.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m in a constant cycle of medical debt,” Schultz told labor, faith and community activists who rallied April 15 in the Capitol rotunda.

“There are weeks when I have to choose between filling up my gas tank, buying groceries for myself and making a full payment toward my cancer bills.”

Schultz and other activists applauded a package of debt-related reforms advancing through the DFL-controlled Legislature this session.

Proponents of the Minnesota Debt Fairness Act, including faith-based organizations, health care workers’ unions and Attorney General Keith Ellison, called it a first step toward correcting a debt collection system that needlessly forces families across the state into poverty.

Pastor James Alberts of Higher Ground Church of God in Christ in St. Cloud – one of three religious leaders who spoke at the rally –  said debt forgiveness is value shared among faith communities, from Judaism and Islam to Christianity. Alberts pointed to the Lord’s Prayer, which asks for “forgiveness of debts as we forgive our debtors.”

“Mercy and forgiveness are missing in our debt collection system, and here in Minnesota it is time to act in every way we can to fix this,” he said. “We must pass debt relief now.”

Medical debt is the Minnesota Debt Fairness Act’s primary focus, and members of the Minnesota Nurses Association were well represented at the rally. Jennifer Michelson, a retired United Hospital nurse, said MNA members see the strain of medical debt firsthand.

“I didn’t take care of very many patients who could cover the full cost of the care they received,” she said. “It’s hard for our patients to heal if their energy is going toward worrying about medical bills that they can’t afford to pay, or how their families will take care of it if they pass away.”

The proposed legislation would repeal a state law that automatically transfers medical debt to a patient’s spouse. In Minnesota, medical debt is the only kind of debt transferred in this way.

The Minnesota Debt Fairness Act would also ban medical providers from refusing care – or threatening to do so – to a patient with outstanding bills. A study by the Peterson Center on Health Care found 60% of people with medical debt have deferred care to avoid going further into the red.

Additionally, health providers or their collections agents would be barred from reporting patients’ debt to credit bureaus because, Schultz said, bad credit “shouldn’t be a side effect of getting sick.”

Other provisions in the bill would apply more broadly to the state’s debt collection system, making adjustments based on income levels to the maximum percentage of someone’s wages that creditors can garnish – and shielding the last $4,000 in Minnesotans’ bank accounts from garnishment.

“This is so you don’t go to the grocery store to buy groceries for your family and find out you have zero dollars left in your account,” Rep. Liz Reyer (D-Eagan) said. “We know this happens. It’s not right.”

After the rally, members of the House voted to advance a commerce policy bill that included the Minnesota Debt Fairness Act’s key provisions.

But the Senate’s companion bill, passed earlier in the session, did not address debt reform, meaning representatives of the two chambers need a conference committee to settle on a final bill to send to Gov. Tim Walz before lawmakers’ deadline to adjourn May 20.

Attorney General Ellison urged activists at the rally to keep the issue on their representatives’ agenda.

“This is a moral issue,” he said. “It’s not just a legal issue, it’s not just a political issue, it’s a moral imperative to pass this bill. Those signs that you brought, don’t just leave them here. Take that sign with you and put it up somewhere people can see it…

“I want the world to know that we’re passing this bill today, and this is not the end of it.”

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

Allina cancer center nurses vote to unionize after management shrugs off safety concerns

February 29, 2024 by

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.

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