Union approves first contract at Planned Parenthood North Central States

January 19, 2024 by

PPNCS United members held informational picketing in November – a strategy that workers credit with pressuring management to improve its health coverage.

Planned Parenthood North Central States workers in Minnesota and four other states voted to ratify their first union contract this week, capping a tumultuous round of negotiations with the reproductive health organization, where workers voted to unionize in July 2022.

The new contract takes effect retroactively to Jan. 1 and covers about 430 members of PPNCS United, who will see immediate gains in wages and health benefits, according to the union.

The contract establishes a 15-year wage scale and provides raises of 11.75% over three years, including a 4.5% increase in year No. 1. For Planned Parenthood’s lowest-paid employees, a new $19 minimum wage, combined with the first-year wage hike, will mean 17% increase in their pay.

“That’s a huge victory,” said PPNCS triage nurse Nicole Anschutz, who served on the union’s bargaining team. “Some staff who were getting $17 an hour are seeing that increase to almost $20 per hour immediately.”

Union members also won grievance and arbitration rights and a progressive discipline process that requires just cause for terminations – no small victory for a union whose elected leaders alleged that they were targeted and intimidated by management away from the bargaining table.

Anschutz joined the bargaining team after a wave of resignations and firings, prompted by PPNCS management’s move to deliver “final written notices” to all 14 workers elected to represent their union in negotiations. With no grievance or arbitration process in place, union members filed charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board last March – and are still awaiting a decision.

“There were other staff that weren’t a part of the bargaining team that were fired during this process for various reasons too, and we couldn’t fight that,” Anschutz said.

Shay Gingras, a senior research coordinator who served on the union’s bargaining team from the start, noted that the process has played out as PPNCS and its workers face new challenges – and attacks – in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“We’ve lost too many amazing staff members because of issues we have been facing inside and outside of the organization, so I am happy we won protections and other gains to recognize our important work supporting our patients,” Gingras said.

“As an original bargaining team member, I’m so proud of our team who have fought so hard for so long to win these gains. This has been a really long and difficult process and our fight will continue, but I’m really proud of what we were able to win in this first contract.”

Union leaders and PPNCS reached a tentative agreement on the three-year contract in their 37th bargaining session. Among members who participated in the ratification vote, 84% voted to approve the deal.

Nothing came easily at the bargaining table, committee members said, prompting union members to steadily dial up their public pressure on PPNCS leadership to settle a fair contract. Informational picketing in November outside several facilities, including in St. Paul, had an immediate impact, according to Anschutz.

“Prior to the informational picket, the employer had made it very clear we were going to get nothing on health insurance,” she said. “After the informational picket, we started getting things done on health insurance.”

James Willging, a senior community organizer at PPNCS, said health insurance will become more affordable, especially for workers with children and families, under the new contract.

“This contract gives frontline staff more stability so we can focus on the critical work we do every day,” Willging said. “We hope this will help address our staffing shortage so we can provide the compassionate and kind care our patients deserve.”

Although they celebrated their first contract, Anschutz and other union leaders were quick to note that their union’s efforts in support of workers’ rights and abortion rights is not done.

“It seemed impossible at times, like it was never going to happen,” Anschutz said. “I didn’t expect to cry as much as I did in the whole process. But it’s worth it to have the protections we have now and this foundation that we can build upon in the future.”

PPNCS United is an affiliate of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.

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After ‘unprecedented’ disrespect from Planned Parenthood, union plans to escalate contract campaign

September 8, 2023 by

Planned Parenthood North Central States workers rallied behind their bargaining team in July, with support from elected and labor leaders.

The union of over 400 Planned Parenthood workers in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas will enter mediation with the North Central States (PPNCS) chapter after a frustrating round of bargaining last week prompted another elected union leader to resign from the organization.

In a press conference yesterday, April Clark said she used to joke that she was a Planned Parenthood “lifer,” but the senior training and development specialist is now working her final two weeks with the sexual health nonprofit after eight years of service.

Clark was among 14 original members of the union’s bargaining team, and her departure will mean more than half those elected leaders are no longer with PPNCS, after management slapped all 14 with “final written notices” four months into the bargaining process.

The disciplinary action, which the union has challenged as retaliatory and illegal, means any subsequent infraction – no matter how serious – could result in termination. “I feel paranoid about every action that I take, which is not a great way to feel the majority of your waking time,” Clark said.

The move has had a chilling effect throughout the bargaining unit, which voted 264-26 in favor of forming a union with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa last year. The nonprofit’s already high turnover rate – a reason workers cited as a factor in forming their union – has climbed to 44% since contract negotiations began, according to organizers.

“For my mental health, I am leaving – like so many other leaders of this bargaining team have done since receiving their final notices,” Clark said, choking back tears. “Unfortunately, so are many of our other coworkers. I don’t know anyone who isn’t actively looking for employment elsewhere, and that isn’t hyperbole.”

For Clark and others, the final straw came during negotiations last week. Previous sessions had yielded “slow but steady progress,” health educator and LGTBQ care coordinator Elizabeth Wolfe said, and at a meeting in July, management pledged to bring a new health insurance proposal to the next session.

But instead of new health care language, Wolfe said, PPNCS executives offered the union a choice between a three-year contract with “minimal wage increases,” or one with bigger raises that clawed back several agreements reached earlier in negotiations, including longevity pay, increases to paid time off and floating holidays, expanded bereavement leave and new professional development opportunities.

“What the negotiators and leaders of our union have told us is that they’ve never seen an employer make a proposal to undo so many substantial pieces of progress already won through the bargaining process,” Wolfe said.

Workers have long since given up hope that Planned Parenthood, an organization with deep progressive roots, would seek a collaborative relationship with their union.

PPNCS refused workers’ petition for voluntary union recognition despite overwhelming support, and the attacks on bargaining team members have drawn comparisons to Starbucks and Amazon from veteran SEIU leaders. The union rescinded its endorsement of PPNCS CEO Ruth Richardson, who served in the Minnesota Legislature until her abrupt resignation last week.

But until now, the union’s frustrations had stemmed from actions away from the bargaining table. The unprecedented exchange last week has union members planning an escalation of their contract campaign.

Raven LaBeau, a health center associate in Minneapolis, said no options are off the table.

“We will accept nothing less than (contract) language that honors and is appropriate for the work that every single one of us does every day,” they said. “This work and those that perform it are too important – too necessary – to tolerate half measures and weak proposals made by management at the table.

“My message to management is this. There are more of us than there are of you, and truly we don’t need you as much as you need us. We are the lifeblood of this affiliate, and it’s time to treat us accordingly.”

PPNCS union members encourage supporters to track their social media feeds – @PPNCSUnited – for information about upcoming calls to action and events.

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