Workers unite for safe staffing, job security: ‘We are the face of Allina’

After hundreds marched together outside Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis yesterday, the picket line shifted to United Hospital in St. Paul today, as health care workers kept the pressure on Allina Health to get serious about contract negotiations with their union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. Workers like Dave Young, a nursing assistant at United, want Allina […]

On lobby day, Service Employees find bipartisan support

  A bipartisan group of Minnesota legislators lined up on the Capitol steps today to show support for a bill to ratify and fully fund home care workers’ first contract with the state. Winning legislative approval for the contract, ratified by members of the newly organized unit in voting last month, is one of a […]

SEIU members, Twin Cities hospitals reach agreement

Health care workers at eight Twin Cities hospitals are poised to enjoy greater health and safety protections on the job as part of their new union contract. SEIU Healthcare Minnesota announced today that its members have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract covering about 3,500 workers at five health systems: Children’s Hospitals, […]

SEIU home care workers reach tentative agreement with state

Five months after their historic vote to form a union, home health care workers represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota today announced they have reached a tentative agreement on a first contract with the State of Minnesota. The agreement includes several gains for the new bargaining unit of 27,000 workers in publicly funded home care programs […]

Low-wage workers announce Black Friday Week of Action

As the holiday shopping season shifts into high gear, workers who stock Walmart’s shelves, serve McDonald’s hamburgers and clean big-box stores are planning a week of action in the Twin Cities to draw attention to the low wages and poor conditions plaguing their industries. The day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday is the highest-profile shopping day […]

NLRB: North Memorial responded to staffing campaign with harassment, retaliation

North Memorial Hospital illegally retaliated against union nurses and health care workers who participated in a campaign to fight staffing cuts and protect patient safety at the Robbinsdale hospital, according to a complaint issued this week by the Minneapolis-based Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board. The complaint finds merit to charges of unfair […]

Collective Bargaining: Under attack in Wisconsin, on the rise in Minnesota

Jeff Johnson, the Republican nominee for governor, provided a glimpse of his leadership style May 15, telling a Tea Party group he would “go all Scott Walker on Minnesota” if elected Nov. 4. But what is it about Walker’s Wisconsin that Johnson believes is worth replicating? To answer that question – and to get a […]

Home care workers win election, take momentum into contract talks

Home health care workers in Minnesota have spoken, and they voted decisively to form a union, the state’s Bureau of Mediation Services announced yesterday. Now the fight to improve the lives of home care workers and the people they serve shifts from the organizing field to the negotiation table – and back to the State […]

St. Paul home care worker Maggie Doran: Why I’m voting ‘yes’

On July 8, home care workers from across the state came together to file a union petition that triggered what will be the largest union election in the history of our state. Ballots will go out to more than 26,000 home care workers on August 1, and we will have our election results before Labor […]

Home care workers ‘invisible no more’ after filing for historic union election

When home care workers in Minnesota launched their campaign to form a statewide union less than two years ago, they set out to raise wages, improve working conditions and bring legitimacy and respect to a career path seen as critical to meeting the needs of an aging population. They may not have set out to […]