SEIU members strike at five Twin Cities nursing homes

April 20, 2026 by

Workers picket outside The Estates at St. Louis Park on Day 1 of the strike.

Picket lines went up at 7 a.m. today outside five Twin Cities nursing homes, as about 300 union members launched a 72-hour strike for fair wages and respect.

The bargaining units, represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, are in limited negotiations with the employers, under to a wage-reopener clause in their contract. But management has shown no interest in bargaining, union officers say.

“The employer came in with only one number, 2%, and walked out,” Executive Vice President Rasha Ahmad Sharif said during a press conference outside The Estates of St. Louis Park. “That was their last, best and final offer – immediately.”

The union has filed charges of bad-faith bargaining with the National Labor Relations Board.

On the picket line, union members said they felt stung by the employers’ decision to pay high-priced replacement workers from out of state rather than settle a fair wage increase with the workers who provide daily care to their residents.

“We get low pay and heavy, heavy, client (loads),” Juanita Campbell, a licensed practical nurse with 23 years of experience at the St. Louis Park facility, said. “And we don’t have enough staff. They don’t respect us.”

Juanita Campbell said workers’ pay doesn’t match the heavy client load at The Estates, where she has worked for 23 years.

In addition to St. Louis Park, Estates workers are on strike at Roseville, Fridley and Excelsior locations. Union members at Cerenity Senior Care at Humboldt in St. Paul also are on strike.

Striking workers plan to rally at the Capitol on Tuesday and return to their sites for picketing Wednesday. Supporters are welcome.

While employers in the nursing-home industry pinch pennies at the bargaining table, many are also bankrolling two lawsuits seeking to disband the state’s new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board.

“It is frustrating that (employers) seem unwilling to support us while we care for residents,” Jared Mitiga, a registered nurse at St. Louis Park, said. “It felt like they slammed the door shut before we could even get started. It’s especially frustrating that they claim they can’t give wage increases when the industry is spending money on all this other stuff.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Research into union busting in MN nursing homes draws lawmaker scrutiny

April 17, 2026 by

Minnesota nursing home workers attend a Senate Labor Committee hearing on rampant union-busting in the heavily subsidized industry.

Authors of two recently published reports on union busting in Minnesota nursing homes presented their findings to the Senate Labor Committee last week, raising concerns among some lawmakers that public funds are being used to stifle worker voice.

Committee Chair Jen McEwen (D-Duluth) called the new research “kind of a bombshell.” Sen. Sandy Pappas (D-St. Paul) said she was “pretty shocked.”

But the findings came as no surprise to about two dozen nursing home workers in the hearing-room gallery, many of whom had been on the business end of management’s union-avoidance playbook.

Addressing the committee, Cassandra Thomas, a certified nursing assistant at Chapel View Home in Hopkins, described the changes she and her co-workers saw after they petitioned for a union election last year, like town-hall meetings with free food and regular check-ins with an out-of-town consultant.

The message, Thomas said, was clear. “They kept talking about how much the union would cost us,” she said. “But I wondered how much all this cost them, instead of just giving us that raise.”

Chapel View workers won their union election in December, joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa. They are working toward a first contract that delivers that raise – and addresses concerns over staffing, safety and client care that sparked their organizing drive.

But the anti-union campaign left a bitter taste in workers’ mouths – especially after they learned the estimated price tag of Chapel View’s union-avoidance campaign: as much as $400,000, or $2,800 per worker, according to Labor Lab researcher Teke Wiggin, who also addressed the Senate committee.

“It was so frustrating to hear how much they spent to try and stop us,” Thomas told lawmakers. “This all happened while we were working short. They could have spent that money on staff to care for our residents.

“How is this OK?”

Wiggin presented findings from Labor Lab’s new report, “The Price of Repression,” which studied five union-busting campaigns at nursing homes in Minnesota from 2022 to 2025.

The report uses anti-union consultants’ public disclosures, industry billing rates, campaign manuals and independent research to estimate the price tag of those union-busting campaigns, which ran from $140,000 to over $400,000.

Wiggin compared those costs to the amount employers could have spent on wage increases for impacted workers had they recognized the union voluntarily, an amount that ranges from 3.5% to 20% – or $1,400 to $7,300 per worker.

“Our report underscores that when nursing homes really want to find money and resources, they do,” Wiggin told lawmakers.

In a separate report on Minnesota nursing homes, Columbia University researchers surveyed 2,000 certified nursing assistants statewide and uncovered a “pattern of anti-union tactics” in the industry – especially in nursing homes that rely heavily on public funding.

Sociologist Adam Reich, one of six researchers who worked on the Columbia report, walked lawmakers through two case studies of union-busting in Minnesota nursing homes.

The report includes firsthand accounts from workers reacting to their bosses’ anti-union campaign, including misinformation, so-called “captive audience meetings” and, most shockingly, appeals to nursing home residents and their families to encourage caregivers to vote “no.”

At one nonprofit nursing home with a religious affiliation, an administrator leaned on Biblical proverbs to suggest that union organizers were wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“One story that sticks in my mind is a worker whose manager told them that they were going to talk to the pastor of the church they both attended about how this worker was organizing,” Reich said.

Asked by lawmakers what policy recommendations might come out of the two reports, Reich suggested a precise analysis of how nursing homes are using public funds, and whether they are being used to thwart organizing efforts.

“That seems deeply problematic in a state that I know cares deeply about the integrity of public funding,” he said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Report exposes union-busting in Minnesota nursing homes

March 20, 2026 by

Minnesota nursing home workers who don’t have a union on the job have launched a new advocacy group, Nursing Home Workers United. Organizers rallied March 12 in St. Paul before a meeting of the state’s Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board. The new organization formed, in part, as a response to employer groups’ legal effort to disband the board altogether.

Researchers at Columbia University issued a report last week that shines a light on rampant union-busting in Minnesota’s nursing-home industry, particularly in facilities that rely heavily on public subsidies.

The report, “Democracy Denied at the Bedside: Union Avoidance in Minnesota’s Nursing Home Sector,” draws on years of qualitative research and a statewide survey of nearly 2,000 certified nursing assistants to reveal a “pattern of anti-union tactics” in the state’s nursing homes.

Columbia Labor Lab sociologist Adam Reich, one of six researchers who worked on the report, said the team began digging into labor relations in Minnesota’s nursing-home industry shortly after the pandemic, which sparked a surge in union-organizing efforts among health care workers.

In addition to analyzing data – from their CNA survey, from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and from the Minnesota Department of Health – researchers embedded themselves into multiple union organizing efforts from 2021 to 2025.

The report includes firsthand accounts from workers reacting to their bosses’ anti-union campaign, including misinformation, so-called “captive audience meetings” and, most shockingly, appeals to nursing home residents and their families to encourage caregivers to vote “no.”

At one nonprofit nursing home with a religious affiliation, an administrator leaned on Biblical proverbs to suggest that union organizers were wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“One story that sticks in my mind is a worker whose manager told them that they were going to talk to the pastor of the church they both attended about how this worker was organizing,” Reich said.

But the report’s key finding is the crossover between homes that receive public funds and those that run union-avoidance campaigns. It’s already raising questions among unions in the industry about whether public funds are being used to stifle workers’ voices.

Rasha Ahmad Sharif, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa’s executive vice president, said workers deserve answers.

“While not surprising, we are still outraged to see that money that workers have been pushing to go to essential workers caring for Minnesotans is being spent trying to stop workers from forming unions because employers are too scared of their workers practicing their federal rights and gaining the bare minimum that their employers refused to give them,” Ahmad Sharif said.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , ,

Workers call out ‘anti-union activities’ at Minnesota nursing homes

October 23, 2024 by

Union and non-union nursing home workers rallied outside Monarch’s offices as representatives sought a meeting with executives inside.

As Minnesota nursing homes continue to draw scrutiny for low wages, high turnover and staffing shortfalls, members of the state’s largest health care union are calling on one of the state’s largest nursing home companies to join them in working toward a solution.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, which represents over 50,000 health care workers, staged an hourlong rally Sept. 27 outside Monarch Healthcare Management’s corporate offices in Eagan, bringing together over 100 union and non-union nursing home workers and community supporters.

Two workers entered Monarch’s offices and briefly met with an executive to relay the group’s demands.

“We told him that we are fed up with working short every day, day in and day out, in these nursing homes,” Isaac Sant said. “It’s not safe for us as workers; it’s not safe for our residents. Things have got to change.”

Conditions are poised to change in the state’s nursing home industry, thanks to the work of a new Workforce Standards Board, authorized by DFL legislative majorities last year.

The board recently took the first steps toward setting a $20.50 minimum wage in all nursing homes, with higher rates for positions like LPNs and CNAs. The board also voted to require that nursing home workers receive time-and-a-half pay on all 11 state holidays.

But employer representatives on the board did not support the higher standards. And as the state’s rulemaking process grinds on, conditions inside nursing homes remain challenging for both staff and residents, workers at the rally said.

Bolanle Adedeji, who is training to work at a Monarch facility, said short staffing often prevents nursing home workers from offering the personalized care they want to give.

“At times, they want to share their minds, they want to talk with you, they want to relate to you,” she said. “But because of time constraints, you cannot let them. Some of them are weeping, some of them are crying that we are not there for them. So this short staffing has to stop now.”

One way to bring change, workers at the rally said, is by organizing a union. But SEIU representatives said Monarch is notorious for “anti-union activities” in its non-union facilities where workers show an interest in bargaining for better wages, benefits and staffing.

“The boss has the message that we’re here, and enough is enough with the short staffing, low pay and poor working conditions,” said Isaac Ngafua, who works at an assisted living facility in Brooklyn Center.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , ,

New state board sets $20.50 wage floor in nursing home industry

June 10, 2024 by

SEIU member Nessa Higgins spoke during a press conference at the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, as (L to R) Teresa Brees, T.J. Hart, Michelle Armstrong and Labor Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach looked on.

Thousands of nursing home workers across Minnesota are likely to see their pay dramatically increase over the next three years after the state’s new board to oversee workforce standards in the industry authorized a $20.50 minimum wage April 29.

The new wage floor will phase in over the next three years, with higher minimums for certified nursing assistants ($24 per hour), trained medication aides ($25) and licensed practical nurses ($28.50).

DFL state lawmakers passed a bill last year establishing the Nursing Home Standards Board, the first of its kind in the U.S. It was a top political priority for three unions representing nursing home workers: SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the United Steelworkers.

At a press conference following the board’s vote, workers praised the new standards as historic. Some became emotional in discussing the implications for themselves, their fellow workers and nursing home residents across Minnesota, where the industry has seen some of the worst staffing shortfalls in the nation.

“I have been doing this work for most of my lifetime, and I have seen the consistency of staff drop over time,” said Michelle Armstrong, a nurse and member of Local 1189 who served on the standards board. “We’ve lost the continuity of care, which hurts workers and residents.

“We need to do everything we can to change things, and today, I hope, is a big step forward.”

Nessa Higgins, who works at the Estates of Chateau in south Minneapolis, said that over her 25-year career, she has watched executives increase their own pay while struggling to attract and retain workers to frontline jobs. She said some of her co-workers now work multiple nursing-home jobs to make ends meet for their families.

“When that wage goes up, that’s them spending more time with their families because they don’t have to work two or three jobs,” she said. “We give everything that we’ve got, and it never trickles down to us – it just stops with the higher-ups.”

“I make $17.68 an hour, and I’ve been working at this facility for seven years,” Roseville Estates laundry worker Teresa Brees, an SEIU member, said. “That’s all I make. Thankfully, the Standards Board, (when the wage floor begins phasing in) will see that at least I get above $19. That’s really important to me.”

In addition to the wage floor, the new board also mandated that nursing home workers receive time-and-a-half pay on all 11 state holidays – a move T.J. Hart, who works in food service at a non-union nursing home, described as a matter of fairness.

“Long-term-care facilities are 24-7 facilities, and it’s not management who’s working on holidays,” Hart said. “We are the ones that are working on holidays and taking time away from our families and friends while we’re serving our residents.”

Higgins, an SEIU member, said she has struggled with the question of whether to leave her current position for a higher-paying job – a choice she hopes she won’t have to make now, with the new standards poised to take effect.

“Some of my best friends are residents at that nursing home,” Higgins said. “I’m there every day. I know I look forward to seeing them, and they look forward to seeing me. I want to stay right there with the family that I have been with.”

The nine-member board approved the higher standards with three worker representatives and three government representatives voting yes, while three employer representatives abstained.

Rasha Ahmad Sharif, a vice president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and leader of its long-term care sector, called the board’s vote a “revolutionary moment seeing nursing home workers – union and non-union alike – standing up and demanding change.”

“We stand by and support this board and are excited for these new standards,” Ahmad Sharif added. “We still have a lot of work to do, but this is an amazing step forward for nursing home workers and residents all across Minnesota.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Nursing home workers plan to strike as new industry standards board ramps up work

February 23, 2024 by

Workers at nursing homes across the Twin Cities are voting to stage a one-day strike March 5 over unfair labor practices, escalating their fight for pay and benefit increases that they say are needed to address staffing shortfalls in their industry.

Two local unions, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663, had announced workers at 10 nursing homes would join the strike when the March edition of The Union Advocate went to press. Leaders said strike-authorization votes at other facilities were still in the works.

At a press conference Feb. 20 outside Saint Therese in New Hope, nursing assistant Monyou Taye said she voted to strike because “workers and our residents deserve better.”

“We don’t have enough staff and equipment to keep up with the work,” Taye said. “Over the years we have had to do more and more … because not enough people want to do this important work under the current wages and benefits.

“It makes us feel burned out and stressed. It makes us feel angry.”

In her 15th year working at Saint Therese, Taye still earns less than $20 per hour, and a survey of 1,300 Minnesota nursing home workers conducted by SEIU last fall suggests she’s not alone. Half reported making less than $20 per hour, 80% said they make less than $25 per hour and nine out of 10 said they struggle to afford basic needs.

A strike is sure to draw the attention of Minnesota’s new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board, which began meeting last fall and is tasked with setting minimum employment standards in the industry.

The board, established by state lawmakers last year, is ramping up its work, and dozens of union members turned out for its first in-person meeting Feb. 21 in Brooklyn Park.

SEIU Healthcare members voted last year to push for a $25 wage floor in the industry, plus affordable health and retirement benefits.

“We know that these changes are possible, and we know that without them we are going to continue the staffing crisis that plagues the nursing home industry,” Jamie Gulley, the union’s president, said outside Saint Therese. “Workers are fed up, and that’s why we’re standing up and saying enough is enough. We are ready to strike.”

At press time, two nursing homes in the east metro, Cerenity in St. Paul and the Estates of Roseville, were among the locations where workers planned to strike March 5.

Teresa Brees, a Roseville worker with 25 years of experience in the industry, tore a tendon in her bicep after working 23 straight days last year. She and other long-term care workers “are at our breaking points,” she said, due to short staffing, and it won’t get better without better pay and benefits.

“How many more good people will we lose because of the low pay, lack of benefits and ongoing disrespect?” she said.

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

During break from negotiations, UFCW members provide lifesaving first aid

October 20, 2016 by
Members of the Prescott nursing home bargaining team: (L to R) Kim Nelson, Karen Peterson, Gayla Morrison and Jody Pederson.

Members of the Prescott nursing home bargaining team: (L to R) Kim Nelson, Karen Peterson, Gayla Morrison and Jody Pederson.

Four Prescott Nursing and Rehabilitation Community workers got more than they bargained for during a break from contract negotiations Tuesday in South St. Paul.

As Gayla Morrison, Kim Nelson, Jody Pederson and Karen Peterson walked into Angelo’s Italian Restaurant for lunch with their union representative, they noticed a woman hunched over, struggling to breathe.

“It was apparent she was choking,” Peterson said. “She was unresponsive. So we got her into a position where we could do the Heimlich maneuver.”

A charge nurse on the night shift at the Wisconsin nursing home, Peterson naturally took the lead in working to stabilize the woman.

“It wasn’t out of the ordinary to look for her to tell us what to do, and she did,” Morrison said. “Karen kept us going.”

The co-workers were able to get the choking patron to start breathing again, and they provided constant updates to a 911 operator while waiting for an ambulance to arrive.

That wait was no more than five minutes, but “it felt like it was about 20,” Morrison said.

Executing the Heimlich is part of mandatory CPR re-certification nursing home workers must complete every two years, and the four co-workers, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, said their quick response at the restaurant was instinctual.

Witnesses, though, called it heroic.

“It’s a very good thing they got there when they did,” Local 1189’s Mike Dreyer said.

Peterson, Morrison, Nelson and Pederson make up the bargaining team for workers at the Prescott nursing home. The union has been in negotiations with the company on a new contract for about a month.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Nursing home workers see Fight for $15 as vital to quality care

April 15, 2016 by
Golden Living Center workers Rhoda Brown (L) and Tsge Abraham rally for a fair contract outside the company's Lakeridge site in Roseville.

Golden Living Center workers Rhoda Brown (L) and Tsge Abraham rally for a fair contract outside the company’s Roseville facility.

On the same day over 100 Twin Cities fast-food workers went on strike, area nursing home workers took up the “Fight for $15” as well, rallying outside a Roseville care center for a contract that includes fair wages.

Employees of Golden Living Center welcomed nursing-home residents, striking fast-food workers and other supporters to an informational picket line outside GSL’s Lakeridge site in Roseville yesterday.

About 350 members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota are in contract negotiations with the company, which operates nursing homes across the state. Tim Sorenson, a 25-year employee and member of the union’s negotiating team, said workers want GSL to put a recent influx of state funding for nursing homes where lawmakers intended the money to go – into workers’ paychecks.

“It’s getting harder to find people who want to do this work for the pay we get,” Sorenson said. “Yet our work is very important. We take care of the most vulnerable people among us, our seniors.”

In Minnesota, certified nursing assistants’ median hourly wage is $12.22, and one-third rely on public assistance. It’s a major reason turnover rates for nursing assistants exceeded 50 percent in 2012 and are expected to climb – an alarming trend in an industry expected to see an uptick in demand as baby boomers retire.

“Too many people I work with want to go to other jobs where there’s better pay instead of staying in this job to take care of our seniors,” Sorenson said.

Tim Sorenson speaks at the rally outside GLC's Lakeridge home.

Tim Sorenson speaks at the rally outside GLC’s Lakeridge home.

Sorenson and other GSL workers were among SEIU members in more than 40 cities nationwide who stood up for fair wages and quality care at nursing homes. The timing of the nationwide day of action – on the same day fast-food workers in a record 320 cities went on strike – is more proof that the “Fight for $15” is catching on among low-wage workers in all sectors of the economy.

“No matter if you’re in health care or maintenance or whatever, we all need to be there for each other,” Sorenson said. “That helps you get what you’re after in the long run.”

GSL workers’ current union contract is set to expire May 1.

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

Bernie Hesse: Politicians, bad laws can’t stop workers from organizing

March 26, 2015 by
Bernie Hesse

Bernie Hesse

Our union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, organized a new group of workers in Luck, Wis., the day Gov. Scott Walker signed a Right to Work for Less bill. The workers at Pioneer Care Center, a nursing home in Luck, voted overwhelmingly for a union. The worker win was the bright spot on a day when the labor haters, with the swipe of a pen, further suppressed worker rights in Wisconsin.

In Luck, a group of workers decided that they needed a voice at work and built a strong committee. They fought back against management’s attempts to derail the organizing drive. The union election wasn’t about money, but rather respect on the job, along with working conditions, including better care for the nursing home’s residents.

The UFCW isn’t going to be stopped by RTW or any other attempts to suppress workers’ rights. We have organized the first group of medical cannabis workers in Minnesota, and we are ready to organize the second facility when the opportunity arises. We believe the emerging medical cannabis industry will provide a safe, secure source for patients along with jobs for thousands of workers in the industry. We intend to support the industry with training and legislative advocacy, in addition to ensuring workers’ ability to have a voice at work.

UFCW Local 1189 is part of a coalition working to advance an industrial hemp bill at the Legislature this year, and we see a real opportunity from the Federal Farm Bill of 2014 to set the table for hemp as a new agricultural commodity that can be used as food, fiber or fuel. Minnesota led the nation during World War II in industrial hemp production, and we intend to support the research necessary for the industry to thrive. Currently, hemp is imported from Canada and China. We believe we could create a vertical system of production and processing, perhaps creating a co-op system, which would be worker owned and organized. We also believe that worker-owned systems should be explored as an alternative to the usual owner-driven model. We live in an economic system that could be called the Golden Rules – if you have the gold, you get to make the rules. We will explore how to change that game.

The Twin Cities has many grocery options for consumers. Many grocery stores are union-organized, and we are proud of what we have built up over the years. But we need to put together programs to expand. We are currently meeting with groups of co-op workers at the Wedge, and hope to get to a point where we can achieve recognition. We believe that we can create a co-op worker movement which will allow the co-ops to grow and set standards for several thousand workers in the area.

Finally, it is the mission of our union to organize internally each day. Building solidarity in a worksite is a slow process. Building solidarity is about relationships. It isn’t transactional, but based on human values of support, respect and fairness. We know that solidarity, especially in tough times, works.

– Bernie Hesse is director of special projects, legislative and political action for UFCW Local 1189, based in St. Paul and Duluth. He is also a delegate to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

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

A stinging defeat on labor relations bill 75 years ago

April 3, 2014 by
web.archives-transitstrike

Transit workers ended their 44-day strike 10 years ago this month, after 72 percent of voting ATU Local 1005 members ratified a new contract with Metro Transit. Above: 6-year-old Nicholas Wagner attended his first union rally three days before the settlement.

The Minnesota Federation of Labor held an emergency special convention for the first time in its history April 3, 1939. On the agenda? How to defeat a labor-relations bill making its way through the Legislature that winter and considered by The Advocate to be “one of the most vicious anti-Labor bills ever introduced in the middle west.”

Known as the Vance-Myre bill, the measure reclassified some unfair labor practices as “unlawful acts,” making them misdemeanors punishable by up to 90 days in jail.

The bill’s opponents, including Rep. John Barrett, a member of St. Paul Steamfitters Local 455, called it an overreaction meant to “restrict the entire Labor movement for the overt acts of a few individuals or groups within the Labor movement.”

The measure passed on the final day of the legislative session, despite opposition from unions and lawmakers like Barrett.

“We should have left out any reference to unfair practices or unlawful acts leaving those exceptional situations to be dealt with under criminal code where they belong,” Barrett said.

[The Union Advocate’s “This Month in the Archives” feature offers a look back at what the newspaper was reporting from 5 to 100 years ago. Our digital archives are online, searchable and free to anyone. Click here for access.]

50 Years Ago: Hospitals stonewalled health workers

Gov. Karl Rolvaag named an impartial arbiter in April 1964 to help settle a dispute between five St. Paul hospitals and members of Hospital Employees Local 113, a forerunner of today’s SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.

By April 1964, the hospitals had been dragging their feet in contract negotiations with the union for 13 months. State law denied hospital employees, as well as state and local government workers, the right to strike – meaning Local 113 members’ options for taking action against the hospitals were limited.

“Most unions would call a strike,” The Advocate reported in its April 9 edition, but the “poor substitute” left for hospital employees was to seek arbitration, a move they made after a meeting the month before with hospital management broke down.

R.A. Olson, president of the Minnesota Federation of Labor, said the situation revealed a need to change the state’s laws to empower hospital workers and public employees with a full complement of rights on the job.

“They are forbidden to strike and are given nothing in exchange for their loss of rights,” Olson said.

25 Years Ago: Nursing home workers aired grievances

In a meeting with two members of the Minnesota Senate Finance Committee, about 80 nursing home workers, members of United Food and Commercial Workers, warned that low pay, poor benefits and threadbare staffing were eroding the quality of care in their facilities.

The meeting was organized by the Labor-Management Coalition for Quality Health Care.

One worker told senators she quit her nursing assistant job of nine years even though it meant a $2 per hour pay cut. “I couldn’t take it any more,” she said, noting workers often were assigned 15 to 20 patients at a time.

Sen. Don Samuelson told workers he didn’t anticipate a funding increase for nursing homes during the 1989 legislative session. The Legislature provided for a one-time, 3.5 percent increase in the previous budget, hoping nursing home operators would pass on the influx to workers.

But many of the non-union nursing homes “used it for workers’ compensation premium increases,” so many workers didn’t see a penny, he said.

web.archives-cartoon

Filed Under: From the Archives Tagged With: , , , , , ,