Insulted by 1% wage offer, Half Price Books workers strike

July 13, 2023 by

Striking Half Price Books workers picketed the Roseville store Thursday morning.

Fed up with slow negotiations and an “insulting” wage offer, Half Price Books workers in the Twin Cities called a two-day strike this morning, and more than 40 union members – about three-quarters of the bargaining unit – showed up in Brooklyn Center at the site of scheduled talks with management.

But the bosses responded by canceling negotiations for the week and closing all four stores – the latest example, union member Hanna Anderson said, that the company is more interested in dragging out the process than in taking workers’ demands seriously.

“They told us that they needed the day to figure out the logistics of running the stores, so they couldn’t bargain,” said Anderson, a shift leader at the store in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood. “An hour later we all got messages that all four of the stores were going to be closed for the next two days.”

That left workers, including longtime bookseller Aaron Kerr, fuming on the picket line.

“They are not in there. The stores are not open. Why are they not at the bargaining table?” Kerr said outside the Roseville location where he has worked for more than two decades. “That is something that makes me incredibly angry.”

Union members are angry, too, about HPB’s stubborn wage proposal, stuck at increases of 1% annually since the company made its first economic proposal in May. Anderson said the offer is insulting, especially given that the union scaled back its demands in bargaining earlier this week.

“This past session we came down a little bit,” she said. “They are holding to their 1%, and they refuse to even entertain anything else, which is obviously very upsetting to everyone here. Especially the past week, when the company basically said we don’t deserve a living wage, that really frustrated everyone.”

Workers have proposed increasing HPB’s starting pay from $15 to $16 per hour and $1.50 wage hikes for other employees, plus a new pay scale based on longevity.

Currently, workers get quarterly bonuses and annual raises at their bosses’ discretion, but raises of 2% or 3% don’t amount to much when your pay is stuck at $15 per hour, Anderson said.

“And there have been years where, if we were getting a new computer system, there weren’t bonuses,” she said. “It is just if they are willing to give us them. You can’t rely on them.”

Workers from the St. Paul and Roseville stores bargain jointly with workers from St. Louis Park and Coon Rapids locations. They all voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers – locals 1189 and 663 – in separate elections starting in November 2021.

Negotiations over a first contract began over 19 months ago, and they had been productive before reaching the economic phase, with tentative agreements on workplace health and safety, grievance procedures, scheduling. Other agreements would prevent managers from filling jobs that would take hours away from union members, and would clearly establish a process, based primarily on seniority, for potential layoffs.

Talks turned to economics this spring, and after a round of handbilling and informational picketing failed to move management, workers finally have called a strike, formally citing charges of unfair labor practices that the union filed over management’s failure to share “crucial information.”

It’s a big step for a new union to take, Anderson acknowledged.

“We have been saying ‘strike’ is kind of like the s-word,” she said. “People were nervous. But we have legal protections. We are really a close-knit community, and seeing everyone from all four stores has been really awesome.”

Kerr said support for the strike was overwhelming, and it showed in the turnout at the planned bargaining session this morning.

“In our meetings, everybody showed up and it was almost unanimous that we need to do this,” he said. “We have got to do whatever it takes to make management understand we are serious, or they will continue to pretend that what they want to give us is completely reasonable.”

Workers held picketing at all four stores today, traveling from Coon Rapids to Roseville in the morning, then hitting St. Paul and St. Louis Park in the afternoon.

Supporters are welcome to join the picket line (monitor the union’s social media feeds for locations). Union members are also asking supporters to call on Regional Manager Bill Holland to get back to the bargaining table and settle a fair contract.

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St. Paul baristas to Starbucks: ‘We’re not going away’

May 19, 2023 by

Baristas at the Starbucks on Snelling and Stanford avenues in St. Paul went on strike for the fourth time since winning their union election a year ago.

Workers at Minnesota’s first unionized Starbucks store, at Snelling and Stanford avenues in St. Paul, went on strike for a fourth time April 27 – on the one-year anniversary of their historic union election – after management unlawfully removed their union bulletin board.

Workers on the picket line said the bulletin-board stunt is emblematic of Starbucks’ do-nothing approach to labor relations since a wave of successful union drives began sweeping across the country 18 months ago.

Pulling down a union bulletin board isn’t just disrespectful – it’s illegal, too.

But breaking labor law has become the norm for Starbucks’ since the union organizing spree began. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), through its regional offices, has issued over 80 official complaints against Starbucks, alleging over 1,400 charges of unfair labor practices since late 2021. The charges include illegal surveillance of workers, firing union supporters and failing to bargain in good faith.

Workers at Minnesota’s six unionized shops can attest to Starbucks’ failure to bargain.

The company’s representatives walked out of separate meetings with bargaining teams from St. Paul and unionized locations in St. Anthony and Minneapolis after just five minutes – and has refused to meet since.

Workers chalked the union’s logo onto the sidewalk outside the store.

The same scene has played out in over 100 bargaining sessions nationwide, according to Starbucks Workers United.

“Recently, a (district manager) came in to the store, and she asked if I needed anything from her,” barista Graciela Nira said. “I told her I needed some bargaining dates.”

“It’s been a year and we still haven’t had any bargaining sessions that Starbucks has shown up to,” another barista, who requested anonymity, said. “They have refused to release benefits to our store that they’ve released to other stores. They’ve cut down our hours so that we’re extremely short staffed, more so than since I’ve been here. And then they took down our union board.”

The NLRB process is grinding, but Nira, who serves on the union’s national bargaining committee, said she is hopeful it will push Starbucks back to the bargaining table.

Meanwhile, baristas around the country are continuing to organize with Starbucks Workers United, which now represents some 8,000 workers at over 300 U.S. locations.

The national union recently released a list of its contract demands. They include a $20 starting wage, with cost-of-living adjustments for baristas in high-cost areas.

The union also says it will bargain for grievance procedures, employer-paid health insurance with mental-health coverage, consistent schedules, higher staffing levels and more.

On the picket line in St. Paul, workers said staffing is at the top of their concerns. Their bargaining unit had 20 members when workers petitioned for a union election a year ago. Now it’s down to 12.

Nira was one of two baristas who clocked into work at 5 a.m. April 27. Two hours later, as the store was set to open, about 20 co-workers, customers and community supporters showed up in solidarity as they walked off the job.

It was the first strike at the St. Paul location that involved a walkout, and union members said they pulled it together in about 48 hours.

“We just want to sit down and bargain,” Nira added.

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‘Bill of Rights’ would fund $25 minimum wage, health benefits for hourly school staff

March 9, 2023 by

Sara Rapp, a school cook on strike in Hastings, testified at the Capitol in support of the ESP Bill of Rights.

As striking food service workers in Hastings put a spotlight on hardships faced by some of the lowest-paid school employees, state lawmakers this week debated bold, new legislation to lift standards for all hourly school workers.

The “Education Support Professionals’ Bill of Rights,” introduced by DFLers in both the House and Senate, would establish a minimum wage of $25 for paraprofessionals, bus drivers, clerical workers and other hourly employees.

It would also require schools to offer affordable, year-round health coverage and to sustain hourly workers’ pay during e-learning days, among other provisions.

To cover schools’ increased costs, the measure would provide new state funding – beyond increases to the per-pupil formula – determined by a district’s ESP staffing needs.

Rep. Brad Tabke of Shakopee, lead author in the House, touted the bill as a matter of fairness for the trusted adults who work in their communities’ school systems.

“All throughout the summer (while) talking to folks, I ran into dozens and dozens of paras, janitors, bus drivers, lunch workers that are really struggling,” he told members of the House Education Finance Committee on Tuesday. “As a state we should be valuing that work.”

Senate author Alice Mann (D-Edina) said school districts need new, dedicated funding to make their hourly positions competitive with other employers.

“You can walk down the street to McDonald’s and get paid more to work there than in our schools taking care of our children, feeding our children, transporting our children and helping to educate them,” Mann said during a Senate committee hearing Tuesday.

Labor market data shows the job vacancy rate at school districts across the nation has been rising for a decade. In Minnesota, where overall workforce participation is higher than the national average, employment in school districts has dropped by 6.4% since October 2019, according to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute’s Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN).

“There’s a lot of reasons why this could be, but the most simple and obvious one is compensation,” EARN policy coordinator Dave Kamper said. “Workers are leaving ESP jobs for higher-paying gigs elsewhere.”

Rep. Brad Tabke holds a press conference with school employees after committee hearings on the ESP Bill of Rights.

Hourly school workers who want to continue serving students have found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, as several ESPs – including one food service worker on strike for higher wages – testified at the Capitol.

Sara Rapp, a cook at Hastings High School, earns just $15.05 per hour in her fourth year with the district. A $10-per-hour raise, she said, “would mean we could take care of ourselves and our families with the same care and compassion we take care of our students.”

Staffing shortfalls in her district have gotten so bad, Rapp told lawmakers, that three employees recently were tasked with doing the work of eight.

“And we know it’s not just us,” said Rapp, a member of Service Employees Local 284. “Our strike shows the crisis facing school workers because of the low wages and disrespect we are facing. We need to fix this before the staffing crisis gets worse, so we can do what we do best – caring for our students.”

Carloline Long, a special-ed teacher in the Minneapolis Public Schools and member of Education Minnesota, said most hourly school employees work multiple jobs to cover rising costs. Health care costs, in particular, have risen faster than ESPs’ wages, she said.

“I believe everyone who works with children should have access to affordable health care,” Long said. “Due to the low wages, some ESPs will work all their hours in one pay period and not have anything to show for it because every dime they made went to pay for health insurance offered by their employer.”

In addition to a $25 minimum wage and affordable health care, the ESP Bill of Rights would require schools to dedicate two days of paid training to all school staff members who work with students, and to build time into special education teachers’ schedule for managing their students’ individualized education program (IEP).

Annie Gibson, a paraprofessional in the South Washington County Schools, said steps to recruit, retain and treat ESPs like the professionals they are will ultimately benefit students.

“Our children with IEPs are so much more successful when they have consistency in staffing,” Gibson said. “I take pride in building my relationships with each child, and I love being a part of a child’s growth, education, and social and emotional wellbeing.

“We need to make this a profession people seek out and stay in for a long time. This legislation would be a great start.”

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School board ducks meeting after striking workers plan to show

February 15, 2023 by

Laurie Potthoff, a food service worker at Hastings High School, speaks during an impromptu union rally after school board members canceled their scheduled meeting.

Striking food service workers in Hastings have a lot of questions for members of the local school board, who were scheduled to have a public meeting this afternoon.

Why won’t the district come back to the bargaining table?

Why does the superintendent deserve a 6% raise when 2% is the best he can offer food service workers?

What’s changed since the height of the pandemic, when frontline staff were praised as heroes for helping deliver thousands of meals to the community?

Unfortunately for workers, the board abruptly canceled its noon meeting, avoiding a face-to-face encounter with workers like Laurie Potthoff, a high school cook who spoke during a rally outside Kennedy Elementary instead of before the board.

“We are ready to settle this strike, and we are ready to go back and feed the kids. But the board won’t meet with us,” said Potthoff, who has six years of experience with the district. “Come on, school board. Bring us back to the table.”

In bargaining, the district’s negotiators have held firm that most food service workers should accept 35- to 40-cent raises. If the district’s elected leaders share that position, they should look workers in the eye and say as much, Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“I have a message for the Hastings School Board,” Gibbons said. “Shame on you. Shame on you for not coming to the table and not coming to this meeting and talking to these workers.”

Local 284 represents the 35 food service workers who have been on strike since Feb. 7.

Workers have refused to accept the district’s offer to raise their wages by 2%, with a one-time bonus. Union members want the wage scale increased by $3 per hour, and they say one-time bonuses won’t do enough to keep Hastings’ pay competitive with other districts in the area.

Starting pay for food service workers in the nearby South Washington County School District is $16.50, compared to $3.85 per hour in Hastings, where some workers with three years of experience are making just $15.05 per hour.

Hastings workers also accuse the district of inequitable treatment when it comes to ensuring a minimum number of work hours, and they are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums.

Striking food service workers picket outside Kennedy Elementary in Hastings.

The two sides, who had been working with a state mediator, haven’t met since Feb. 2, despite requests from the union to resume talks.

Instead of sitting down with workers, school administrators attempted last week to bully SEIU members back to work, sending out letters that warned they would lose their health care benefits and citing “End of Employment” as the reason.

It is illegal to fire striking workers under Minnesota public sector labor law. Members who have paid into their health insurance should have access to their benefits through the end of the month, Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“The district should be coming to the table to find a fair deal to get these incredible workers back on the job feeding Hastings students,” Gibbons added. “Instead they are sending letters that are misleading and possibly even illegal, hoping to scare our members into accepting a contract.”

Gibbons, a former school food service worker herself, said she hasn’t seen “such solidarity and commitment from a group of workers in a long time.”

The Hastings community, meanwhile, has shown striking workers overwhelming support, with multiple deliveries of food and drinks to the picket line. The feeling is mutual, according to Potthoff, who said she and her co-workers are ready to “get the warm meals back into our students’ bellies so they have the nourishment they need.”

“A frozen sandwich does not cut it,” she added.

The school board’s next scheduled public meeting is Wednesday, Feb. 22.

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Hastings food service workers strike for higher wages

February 7, 2023 by

Striking food service workers line the sidewalk outside the entrance to Hastings Middle School on Day 1 of their strike.

About 35 school food service workers in Hastings went on strike for higher wages today, demanding more from a school district that recently increased its superintendent’s pay to over $200,000 per year.

“We feed their kids,” school cook Julie Clark said. “They should do more to help us feed ours.”

But in last-ditch talks with a state mediator Thursday, Independent School District 200 refused to put more money on the table, union leaders said on the picket line outside Hastings Middle School today.

The workers, members of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284, are seeking wage increases of $3 per hour, but the district has refused to budge from an offer of roughly 2% per year, plus one-time bonuses.

Most workers in the bargaining unit earn between $15 and just over $18 per hour, with head cooks’ pay scale running about $7 per hour higher. Union members say one-time bonuses will do nothing to recruit and retain kitchen staff.

“I have kids ranging from 27 down to 11 years old, and my older kids make more money than I do with less required training,” said Clark, who earns $15.05 per hour after three years working in the district. “To be a cook, we’re required to take trainings and pass tests. My senior in high school is making $20 to $25 per hour.”

Hastings food service workers also accuse the district of inequitable treatment when it comes to ensuring a minimum number of work hours, and say they are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums.

But wages have been the biggest sticking point since negotiations began last June. Local 284’s previous, two-year contract expired June 30.

“I would prefer not to go on strike, but we haven’t seen much movement,” high school cook Sara Rapp said.

On Day 1 of the strike, union members picketed in two shifts, at the beginning and end of the school day. During the morning shift, several supporters honked their horns and waved as they drove by, and the picket line was overflowing with donated coffee and donuts.

Rapp said students at the high school were particularly supportive after workers, who voted to authorize a strike in December, publicly announced their strike date last month.

“The students have been really, really kind,” Rapp said. “I would hate to not serve them food, but at the same time they would hate to see us continue to make (the wages) we make.”

Union members said they plan to move their picket line to other school sites as the strike continues. They are asking supporters to join them on the picket line (follow the union’s Facebook page for locations) and sign onto a letter to the superintendent and school board members.

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Food service workers in Hastings schools set Feb. 7 strike date

January 26, 2023 by

Hastings food service workers plan to strike Feb. 7. (SEIU Local 284 photo)

Food service workers today put the Hastings public school district on notice of their intent to strike Feb. 7 unless the two sides reach agreement on a new union contract before then.

“We’re united, and we’re ready to strike if the district won’t pay us what we’re worth and stop nickel-and-diming us about our working hours and snow days,” said Sara Rapp, a cook at Hastings High School and member of the union’s bargaining team.

Contract negotiations between Independent School District 200 and the 35-person bargaining unit, represented by Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284, began last June and later entered mediation. The previous, two-year contract expired June 30.

No bargaining dates are currently on the calendar between now and Feb. 7, according to Local 284.

The two sides remain far apart when it comes to wages, Local 284 contract organizer Hal Goetz said, with workers holding out for an increase roughly double what the district is offering.

Most workers in the bargaining unit earn between $15 and just over $18 per hour. A few are paid less, and head cooks’ pay scale runs about $7 per hour higher, Goetz said.

Union members also are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums, and for language ensuring a minimum number of work hours. A union statement said workers “have been clear that any settlement needs to include a fair wage increase to combat the impact of historic inflation and maintain stability through regular hours and health insurance benefits.”

Workers voted in December to authorize a strike, and they are asking supporters to sign onto a letter to the superintendent and school board members at seiu.mn/hastings.

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Minnesota nurses call off strike, claim ‘historic victory’ in contract campaign

December 1, 2022 by

Hundreds of nurses marched for a fair contract in downtown Minneapolis Nov. 2.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association called off a planned three-week strike Dec. 6 after reaching tentative agreements on new contracts covering 15,000 nurses at seven hospital systems in the Twin Cities and Duluth areas.

The proposed three-year contracts, if ratified, would raise metro nurses’ wages by 18% and, according to the union, would give nurses “unprecedented” say in how staffing levels are set in their hospital units.

Union nurses had vowed to strike if hospitals did not agree to address chronic understaffing, seeking compensation increases to keep nurses at the bedside and contract language to ensure nurses have a voice in staffing decisions that affect patient care and workplace safety.

They got both, according to MNA President Mary Turner, a nurse in the North Memorial hospital ICU. She called the tentative agreements a “historic win for nurses and patients.”

“For years, hospital executives have been pushing nurses out of the profession by under-staffing our units and undervaluing our nurses,” Turner said. “This tentative agreement will help to keep nurses at the bedside, where we will keep fighting to oppose the corporate health care policies which threaten our hospital systems and the care our patients deserve.”

A profession in crisis

MNA members held firm to their patient-centered demands through bargaining that dragged on for nine months. They stood together after their previous contracts expired over the summer and through a three-day strike in September, the largest private-sector nurses strike in U.S. history.

After voting in November to strike for a second time, nurses said the stakes were too high to settle for anything less than contracts that address the crisis of care in their facilities, citing unsustainable conditions that risk becoming the “new normal” for staff, patients and communities.

“Time is up,” Abbott Northwestern nurse Angela Becchetti said. “You need to put staffing on the table. You need to protect your nurses. Ultimately, we’re here to protect our patients.”

A three-week strike over the holidays would have forced hospitals, already reliant on highly-compensated “traveling” nurses to cover staffing shortfalls, to hire even more as scabs.

“They are paying those nurses an obscene amount of money when all we want is staffing,” Becchetti said. “Put that money that you are paying nurses to work during a strike into staffing, and you won’t be having a strike. If you fix staffing, you will help retain your nurses.”

Unlike the wage increases, which the union hailed as its largest in two decades, staffing gains made by nurses in bargaining vary by tentative agreement, according to MNA.

The union said language in some proposed contracts would prevent management from reducing staff levels without reaching a “consensus” with nurses on the decision. Other language would protect nurses from discipline if they raise concerns about unsafe assignments, or identify specific outcomes that would trigger labor-management staffing reviews.

Nurses also won increases in pay for preceptors, who help train new nurses, and for charge nurses. Several tentative agreements also included new workplace safety protections.

Since negotiations with the hospitals began last spring, Minnesota nurses have framed their contract campaign as a fight to save the profession.

Hospitals across the U.S. are struggling to attract and retain bedside nurses – a trend local nurses say began before the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospital executives looking to pad their bottom lines brushed aside nurses’ documented reports of unsafe staffing levels, which soared by 300% between 2014 and 2021.

Nurses took the lobby of the US Bank corporate offices, calling out the company’s vice chair of consumer and business banking, Tim Welsh, vice chair of the Allina Health board.

Nurses say short-staffed hospital units are more susceptible to adverse events that put their patients ­– and their nusing licenses – at risk. A report issued by the Minnesota Department of Health in August backed up those claims, showing a 33% increase in adverse events in Minnesota hospitals from 2020 to 2021.

Trischa Ochsner, a nurse at Minneapolis Children’s Hospital, said an autumn surge in pediatric respiratory illnesses, coupled with her hospital’s “dire” staffing situation, has created a crisis of care with “no end in sight.” Some families, she said, are forced to wait hours for bed space to open.

“While our leadership gets to remain nameless in an office or working from home or on a golf course, we keep coming back day after day to the same horrific staffing,” Ochsner said. “And at the negotiation table their answers remain unchanged. They do not want nurses involved in the decision-making process, yet their decisions are leading to the decline and failure of a system.”

Frustration with hospital CEO’s – and the executives who populate their nonprofit boards – boiled over in November, when hundreds of MNA members marched through downtown Minneapolis, calling out board members and their employers for driving a corporate approach to health care.

The labor community stood shoulder to shoulder with nurses throughout their contract campaign, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson said.

“Our federation and our affiliate unions were fully prepared to be on the picket line with nurses who stuck together for the contract they deserve – and their patients deserve,” Peterson said.

Staffing campaign heads to Capitol

Although they avoided a strike, nurses insisted their fight to put patients over profits was not over. They pledged to be at the Capitol this winter to lobby in support of legislation that would require Minnesota hospitals to set limits on the number of patients a nurse in each of its units can care for, set by staffing committees with equal participation from management and caregivers.

“With new staffing language and fair wage increases, nurses are empowered to continue the fight to protect care in our communities,” MNA Vice President Chris Rubesch said.

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St. Paul school employees vote to strike, plan rally Tuesday

October 10, 2022 by

AFSCME Local 844 members rallied before a school board meeting in July 2022.

St. Paul Public Schools’ clerical and technical workers have voted to authorize a strike, and members of AFSCME Local 844 plan to rally tomorrow at district headquarters in advance of the school board meeting.

Contract talks covering 265 workers began in April, but the district has refused to meet union members’ demands on wages, training, remote work and other issues.

“One and a half percent just isn’t enough,” Local 844 President Martin Hoerth said of the wage package included in the district’s last offer. “Our health insurance is going up 9%. We have issues with retention, and one of the reasons is we have quite a few job titles where people are having to work two jobs, three jobs to make it work.”

The local represents office, accounting and payroll clerks, as well as distribution workers, processing specialists, student placement workers, occupational therapy assistants, technology services workers and others.

The district filed for mediation over the summer after nine bargaining sessions, and the two sides have met once since then.

Other outstanding union demands include “onboarding” of new staff, so workers understand their options when it comes to benefits. The district eliminated the service at the start of the pandemic, Hoerth said.

“They just hope and pray people sign up for their insurance and other benefits,” he added.

AFSCME members also want the same accommodations – and compensation – as other employee groups when it comes to working in person on days when schools switch to remote learning due to extreme weather.

“They’ve negotiated with educators how they will work from home, and with custodians what they get for coming in,” Hoerth said. “We’re asking to be treated the same.”

Union members voted overwhelmingly to reject the district’s last offer and authorize a strike, but Local 844 has not yet set a strike date. State law requires the union to notify SPPS at least 10 days before a strike begins.

Hoerth said the bargaining team would wait until after their next mediation session, scheduled Oct. 24, to make a decision about a potential strike.

Meanwhile, workers are hoping for a show of public support both at the rally and at the school board meeting afterward. Local 844 plans to start the rally at 5 p.m. outside the district offices at 360 Colburne St. S., where board members will receive public comment at 5:30 p.m.

AFSCME stands for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is an AFL-CIO affiliate.

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Mental health workers strike: ‘Allina does not respect us in the slightest’

October 6, 2022 by

Mental Health workers on strike at Abbott Northwestern hold a rally on the picket line.

Mental health workers at two Twin Cities hospitals wrapped up a three-day strike Wednesday, with union members rallying on the picket line outside Abbott Northwestern and vowing not to be bullied in contract negotiations with Allina Health.

“It has been quite evident that Allina does not respect us in the slightest,” said Jordan Cich, a senior mental health coordinator at Abbott and member of the union’s bargaining team.

The strike impacted over 130 workers at Abbott and Unity Hospital in Fridley, who unionized with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa one year ago to bargain for better wages and safer working conditions.

Union members called a strike for the second time since talks began last winter, in part, because Allina has refused to outline their benefits – like health insurance, paid time off and leaves of absence – in the proposed contract. Union Vice President Brenda Hilbrich, a veteran negotiator, called it an extremely unusual approach.

“The employer has taken a very surprising position on not including those things in our contract,” Hilbrich said. “And we are not going to settle a contract without those items included.”

The strike authorization vote drew 98% support, as Allina’s delay tactics at the bargaining table have only added to longstanding frustrations over shortstaffing, safety and lack of respect from their employer, Cich said.

“In January, members of our bargaining team were voicing our concerns about staffing and violence in the workplace, and all Allina replied was, ‘We don’t want to hear any more of your sob stories,’” she recalled.

As they did during a one-day strike last May, Allina workers were poised to walk out this week at the same time as 350 mental health workers at M Health Fairview, who also unionized with SEIU Healthcare last year.

But Fairview workers postponed their strike after productive bargaining sessions last week, and after a 12-hour bargaining session Monday, the bargaining team reached a tentative agreement with the employer on a first union contract.

If ratified, union members at Fairview will see average wage increases around 6% immediately, with another 2.75% increase in March. Other highlights include additional paid time off and “initial grievance procedures to address staffing concerns,” according to the union.

Throughout their union drive and in negotiations, mental health workers have pointed to a shared interest being treated and compensated as professionals. Staffing issues persist, union members have said, because providing mental health care takes a steep toll on workers’ own mental and emotional well being – and sometimes their physical health, too.

Fairview psych associate Jenny Webster, who has 20 years of experience at Riverside Hospital, said winning a first contract is a step toward stabilizing care in her facility.

“Because of our efforts, we reached the best deal possible for our important work, and I am proud of what we accomplished,” said Webster. “So many people have experienced mental health issues themselves or to a loved one, especially during the pandemic. Raising wages and getting a first contract will mean better care for our patients.”

Now, it’s up to Allina Health to get serious about doing the same for mental health staff and patients, Cich said.

“We want to have enough staff to support not only our patients, but each other as well,” she said. “What we do every day can be very dangerous. We deserve to be protected at work, respected at work and compensated for the work that we do.”

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Nurses’ picket lines swell with community, labor support

September 16, 2022 by

“The people of Minnesota stand with you,” Gov. Tim Walz tells striking United and Children’s hospital nurses.

The Minnesota Nurses Association’s trademark red radiated from picket lines outside Twin Cities hospitals during the union’s three-day strike Sept. 12-14, but nurses were far from alone.

Elected officials, union leaders and supporters from the community bolstered nurses’ ranks, honking horns, joining picket lines and dropping off coffee and treats for the health care heroes standing up to millionaire hospital CEOs to demand safer staffing and better patient care.

“The people of Minnesota stand with you,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told union nurses outside United Hospital on Day 2 of the strike. Walz thanked them for their compassion and service to the state during the pandemic, and he applauded them for using their collective bargaining rights to advocate for their patients and their profession.

“Your message has never been lost,” Walz said. “You walk here to protect patients and Minnesotans. You walk here today to make sure health care is delivered in the safest, most efficient manner. And you walk here today to make sure young people see this profession for what it is – caring, valuable and important to Minnesota.”

State Sen. Erin Murphy of St. Paul, herself a registered nurse, praised MNA members for following their “professional obligation to raise their voices” when they see something wrong, and she called on hospital executives to listen to those voices at the bargaining table.

“We need to heed (nurses’) warning that the understaffing that continues inside our hospitals is undermining their ability to do their jobs with care,” Murphy said.

Executive officers of Education Minnesota stand in solidarity with striking nurses in St. Paul.

Members of local unions brought their colors – and solidarity – to the strike line too.

SEIU members who work alongside nurses as technicians and support staff held rallies at Abbott Northwestern and M-Health Fairview hospitals in Minneapolis. The Teamsters Local 120 semi blared its horn while cruising past several picket lines. And dozens of St. Paul educators, whose union made history with a “strike for the schools St. Paul students deserve” in 2020, joined nurses at United and Children’s.

Denise Specht, president of the statewide educators’ union, said solidarity with nurses comes easily for Education Minnesota members, who take similar issues into their contract negotiations, like workplace safety and adequate staffing to meet students’ needs.

“These nurses are talking about many of the same things we’re hearing in our schools,” Specht said. “They are seeing people walking away from the profession. They are feeling stretched thin. They don’t have professional respect in the workplace. We see that all over in teaching, too.”

Executive officers of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, said its affiliate unions, representing over 300,000 working people, stand in “full solidarity” with MNA nurses – during the strike and as long as it takes to get the contracts they deserve.

“Millionaire hospital executives … need to listen to nurses when they tell them patients need hospitals that are fully staffed with nurses who aren’t overworked,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham and Secretary-Treasurer Brad Lehto said in a statement. “They should follow the nurses’ lead and put patients before profits.”

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