Hospital nurses picket for safe staffing in Twin Cities, Duluth

June 4, 2025 by

Nurses picket outside United and Children’s hospitals in St. Paul.

For over a decade, Minnesota nurses have been fighting at the bargaining table, on the picket line and at the Capitol for staffing ratios that, they say, would help ensure quality patient care and keep nurses at the bedside.

Any hospital executive wondering whether members of the Minnesota Nurses Association would give up that fight got a resounding answer today, as thousands of nurses, dressed in MNA’s signature red, were back on picket lines at 17 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth area.

“We’re not giving up on our patients,” United Hospital oncology nurse Asher Herndon said during a press conference outside the St. Paul facility. “We’re calling for safe staffing, we’re calling for dignity and we’re calling for a health care system that actually puts care first.”

MNA members picketed at Allina Health hospitals like United, as well as hospitals in the Children’s Minnesota, HealthPartners, M Health Fairview, North Memorial, Essentia and St. Luke’s systems, which are currently bargaining contracts covering over 15,000 MNA members.

The action was informational picketing, not a strike. But many union members outside United and Children’s Hospital in St. Paul wore blue stickers that said “Ready” — a warning that their next step is a strike-authorization vote if nurses don’t see progress on their top demands.

That means contract language that would set minimum staffing levels and ensure safe workloads for nurses and patients. But so far, Children’s nurse Melisa Koll said, executives across the table “simply are not interested in this idea.”

MNA President Chris Rubesch has said “shoestring, COVID-era staffing levels” remain in too many Minnesota facilities – a crisis that shows up in reports filed by hospital nurses who spot unsafe staffing in their units.

At Children’s Minnesota’s campuses alone, nurses have filed over 6,500 reports of concerns in the last 30 months, Koll said. “That means our youngest, most vulnerable patients didn’t get the care their nurses felt they needed or deserved.”

United nurse Asher Herndon speaks during a press conference on the picket line.

Some stories behind those reports are devastating.

Herndon, who said they have been assigned as many as five patients with complex medical issues at a time, recalled providing end-of-life care to a patient at the same time as they were caring for multiple others with acute needs.

“I was doing everything I could, but by the time I got back to him, he had already passed – without family, with no one there to hold his hand,” they said. “It’s not because we don’t care; it’s because there weren’t enough of us to be there for him.”

Another patient in Herndon’s unit got so frustrated waiting for help going to the bathroom that the patient tried to go alone and fell, resulting in serious injuries.

“These are not rare events,” Herndon said. “These are predictable outcomes of chronic, dangerous understaffing.”

Stories like Herndon’s are why MNA says short staffing is behind alarming levels of burnout among nurses, and increased medical costs incurred by hospitals and patients. It’s an idea backed up by research that has prompted other states – including Nevada earlier this week – to pass laws establishing limits on the number of patients that can be assigned to nurses.

Hospital systems here shouldn’t wait for lawmakers in Minnesota to act, Rubesch said. They should work together with nurses on safe staffing standards that meet local communities’ needs.

“Nurses are taking action because our health care system cannot afford more delays or excuses,” he said.

— Michael Moore, UA editor

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Union members bristle at Allina plans for more hospital cuts

October 27, 2023 by

Nurses and other health care workers took to the streets outside three Allina Health hospitals Oct. 26, protesting the provider’s plan to cut services and reduce nurse and nurse-aid staffing by as much as 30% in some units, according to their unions.

“We believe this has nothing to do with the betterment of patient care and everything to do with the bottom line,” Mercy Hospital nurse Venessa Soldo-Jones said during a press conference on the picket line outside United Hospital in St. Paul. “Nurses are not in this business for profit.”

Two unions, the Minnesota Nurses Association and SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, organized the informational picketing at United, Mercy and Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

Union members decried Allina for shutting down United’s adolescent mental health unit and Abbott Northwestern’s infusion care center, and they railed against another round of benchmarking – a process in which the system aligns its staffing levels with comparable hospitals across the country – in the works at their facilities.

Health care workers said the process almost certainly will lead to lower staffing and higher workloads in many hospital units – outcomes Allina should be trying to avoid in an already tight labor market, SEIU Healthcare Vice President Brenda Hilbrich said.

SEIU’s 5,000 members who work for Allina are “worn out” from “four years of short staffing,” Hillbrich said. But instead of providing a “soft landing” from the pandemic, Allina “has decided it needs to run productivity tests, benchmarking and other evaluations to justify and normalize the continued short staffing.”

Allina hospital nurses, meanwhile, have been sounding the alarm about short staffing – and its impact on safety and patient care – for over a decade.

United nurse Ali Marcanti said Allina’s plan for more benchmarking is especially troubling in the wake of an annual report, issued last month by the Minnesota Department of Health, that documented 572 adverse events in the state’s hospitals in 2022, the second consecutive year in which adverse events increased. Twenty-one resulted in patient deaths, the highest total since 2006.

“Direct caregiver cuts are seen as an appropriate way to save money, but they always lead to increased patient injury and mortality,” Marcanti said. “There are preventable patient injuries and deaths happening right now in Minnesota – in this hospital – because of chronic understaffing and subsequent failure to rescue.”

Although the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted health systems in 2022, MDH also acknowledged workforce shortages as a factor that contributed to the increase in adverse events last year. “Staffing shortages both limit the number of hands available to assist with patient care needs, such as repositioning and mobility, and create backups in transfers of care across facilities,” the MDH said.

Health care workers don’t want to see pandemic-level staffing become the new normal, Abbott Northwestern nurse Jessica Sherlock said. But that’s exactly what they fear Allina has in mind with this round of benchmarking.

“The pressure that these changes impose threatens to exacerbate our existing staffing shortages, pushing us all closer to the brink of quitting because of the moral injury that we take on every day,” Sherlock said. “Furthermore, we’re deeply troubled that these staffing changes could jeopardize our nursing licenses.”

Union members asked supporters – including elected officials – to contact members of the Allina Health Board of Directors and ask them to put patients before profits by backing away from the plan for more benchmarking.

“Stand by our side and hold Allina Health accountable for what appears to be a race to the bottom in Minnesota health care,” Sherlock said.

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In memoir, United Hospital nurse reflects on experiences in COVID ICU

April 27, 2022 by

The cover photo for Amanda V. Peterson’s memoir was taken by Dr. Avi Nahum, who treated COVID patients at Regions Hospital.

After accepting a post in United Hospital’s COVID intensive care unit in March 2020, Amanda V. Peterson began writing as a form of what she calls “paper therapy.” Two years later, Peterson is a published author, and her memoir, “Everybody Just Breathe,” sold out its first press run in just three weeks.

The book, published by Beaver’s Pond Press in St. Paul, is a candid, emotionally charged reflection on Peterson’s experience as a nurse and mother during the global pandemic. Its subtitle is something of a warning: “A COVID Nurse Memoir of Stamina and Swear Words.”

“ICU nursing kind of brings swear words to begin with, but I counted it up and my COVID-to-Jesus-to-F-bomb ratio was pretty solid,” Peterson laughed.

“It’s a year in the life of me trying to survive, of everyone trying to survive,” she added. “All day long I was telling my patients, ‘Just breathe, that’s your one job,’ because no one could. Then it became my own mantra, my own way to escape.”

Peterson, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, lives in Hudson, Wis., with her husband and two children. She has worked as a registered nurse since 2006, and in the ICU at St. Paul’s United Hospital for the last 14 years.

When United created a stand-alone COVID ICU in the spring of 2020, Peterson was among those who volunteered to work inside. For a full year, she saw only COVID-19 patients, and after a brief respite in 2021, Peterson was back in the COVID ICU when it reopened to handle the Delta wave last fall.

For Peterson “it wasn’t even a question” as to whether she would volunteer to work in the COVID ward.

“This was everything we had trained for,” she said. “You knew this was going to be a pivotal moment in everyone’s career, and I couldn’t sit that out. I wanted to be able to tell my kids that their mom stepped up.”

Peterson did not initially intend to write a book about her experiences – she calls herself an author “by accident” – but began typing her thoughts into a Word document and, sometimes, posting on social media after the pandemic began.

“I wrote a lot on social media about trying to educate the public, urging everybody to bond together and explaining what we were going through in the hospital,” Peterson said. “And I also wrote at home to kind of document what I was going through, almost trying to get it out of me so I could absorb more.”

Every January, Peterson makes a bound photo album for her family of highlights from the previous year, and last year she decided to do the same with her writing, collecting it in a 75-page file. Peterson sent the file to two local publishers and asked if they could bind it together as a keepsake.

Amanda V. Peterson

“Within two weeks both had written back and said they wanted the rest of this story,” Peterson said. “I picked the one that was going to let me keep my swear words.”

The book was scheduled to print last fall, but when the Delta wave hit, Peterson decided to keep writing. It finally published March 28, and a second press run is already in the works.

Reader reaction, she said, has been overwhelmingly positive, with nurses across the country reaching out with their responses to the book. For Peterson, it’s been a form of validation.

“It’s been like, ‘This is how I felt, but does anyone else feel this way?’” Peterson said. “And the response has been, ‘Hell yes, we felt that way!’”

Just as the writing process was therapeutic for her, Peterson hopes the book can be therapeutic for readers as well. She worked with a mental health professional to compile a list of discussion prompts, included at the end of “Everybody Just Breathe.”

“We as nurses had to just ‘do’ for so long that you couldn’t emotionally pass through it because you had to keep going,” Peterson said. “Normally, ICU nurses are adept at having a crappy shift, going home and letting it go. We compartmentalize for a living.

“But the problem with COVID was that it was everywhere. Everybody else is living it too. It’s all over the news. There’s a fear factor. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. So people don’t want to hear about your bad day because they’re coping like you’re trying to cope. You couldn’t vent it out. You couldn’t let it go.”

Peterson continues writing online at thisnursemom.com, where you can also buy a copy of “Everybody Just Breathe.”

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Union members urge hospitals to address staffing shortfalls with higher wages

December 6, 2021 by

Hospital workers, clockwise from top-left, Cliff Adams, Emilee Greskowiak, Lolita Granados and Steele Miller joined a virtual press conference on staffing shortfalls.

About 8,000 health care workers have publicly offered to renegotiate their union contracts with Twin Cities hospitals in an effort to help address staffing shortfalls that, workers warn, are only getting worse.

Members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota announced the offer Nov. 30 in a virtual press conference, during which they described the impact short staffing has had on patient care in the hospitals where they work.

Emilee Greskowiak, a nursing assistant at United Hospital in St. Paul, said understaffing impacts patient comfort, safety and hygiene. She noted that it has been nearly two years since she’s had time to help her most patients shower.

Recently, Greskowiak added, she was the only aide serving a 25-patient ward, where registered nurses were understaffed, too.

“All I can do is empty trashes and let nurses know when people are drowning – having codes and rapids and struggling to survive through their traumas,” she said. “Nurses are barely getting their meds in by the end of shift, let alone proper care and hygiene that families desperately need to … become healthy.”

Some patients don’t get a bed at all, added Cliff Adams, a nursing station tech at M-Health Fairview Riverside Masonic Children’s Hospital. He said his unit, which treats patients with cancer and blood diseases, could not fill eight of its 24 beds recently because the “caregiver-to-patient ratio wasn’t adequate to safely provide care” to more than 16 patients.

“That meant eight beds – eight kids – did not have an opportunity to be properly cared for,” Adams said.

Understaffing is not a new problem at metro hospitals. Workers pointed to several reasons their co-workers have walked away or scaled back their hours in recent years, including the additional pressures created by the COVID-19 pandemic, once again surging in Minnesota.

But while workers see their bosses asking them to skip breaks, extend their shifts and postpone paid time off, what they don’t see from management is a plan to deal with the problem.

“It’s caused tension among staff members because we don’t have enough staff to go around,” said Lolita Granados, a clinical support specialist at Children’s in Minneapolis. “We’re missing sleep, we barely have time to eat, and we are tired.

“It is currently worse than I have ever experienced this before. We need help and support, and I would like the hospitals executives who are working from home … to step up.”

In letters to those executives, SEIU Healthcare leaders pointed to other hospitals in Minnesota that have reopened union contracts to increase wage rates and write in other incentives aimed at attracting and retaining workers, and they requested metro facilities do the same.

Twin Cities hospitals settled new, three-year contracts with SEIU members earlier this year, but wages were a sticking point in negotiations. Some 4,000 workers at United and other Allina locations were poised to strike before reaching an 11th hour agreement with the provider.

Those agreements call for wage increases ranging from 5% to 7.5% over three years. But with inflation on the rise, it’s already clear to workers like Methodist Hospital ER tech Steele Miller that hospitals need to do more.

“People are leaving these jobs for jobs that are less traumatic, less stressful, less exhausting and that pay more,” Miller said. “We are not greedy. We just need to be able to take care of ourselves while we take care of other people.”

Workers also noted that many hospitals are already paying temporary workers – so-called “travelers” – higher wages to deal with the shortage, and they called out executives like M Health Fairview CEO James Hereford, whose annual compensation has ballooned to over $3 million. Allina CEO Penny Wheeler recently topped the $2 million mark.

For Hereford, Wheeler and other hospital executives, Greskowiak offered some pointed advice.

“If you give us better pay and benefits, maybe you’ll keep and retain the staff that you have – and then also get more staff to help us get through this hard time,” she said. “Everyone’s traumatized and underpaid and missing their family and doesn’t want to do this anymore.

“It’s exhausting, and you’re burning out your staff left and right.”

 

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After nearing strike at Allina, SEIU members at local hospitals ratify new contracts

April 21, 2021 by

Dee Tomic, a nursing assistant who volunteered to work in the COVID unit during the pandemic, chooses a picket sign. “I am disappointed – very – by these negotiations,” she said.

Earlier this month, essential workers at United Hospital and seven other Allina Health facilities were ready to strike for a fair contract that respects their service on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, the 4,000 members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota struck a last-minute agreement with Allina and overwhelmingly ratified the new contract.

“We fought hard to win a contract that respects, protects and pays the workers who provide the best patient care in the world,” said Lynn Carlson, a licensed practical nurse and member of the union’s bargaining team.

“The debt we owe to the frontline, essential workers who kept Minnesota safe and healthy over this last year is immense, and we still have work to do. But I’m proud that our members fought for and won this contract.”

Key gains won by Allina workers include a 5% pay increase over the course of the three-year agreement, including 3% in the first year, with back pay. Workers also will see a 9% pension increase over the next three years.

Hospital talks wrap

Earlier this spring, another group of 4,000 SEIU Healthcare members, after negotiations separate from the Allina table, approved new contracts with their hospital employers, including M Health Fairview and Children’s hospitals, North Memorial and Park Nicollet Methodist.

The three-year contracts include pay and pension increases of 7.5% over the course of the agreement, according to SEIU.

In addition, new contract language will address racial justice, equity and inclusion in the workplace, and seek to improve workplace safety. And a new action plan will provide union members an opportunity to address concerns around safe staffing.

“We’ve worked hard this last year to keep our patients safe, and that is why it was so critical to win the best contract we could,” Hope Dahn, a nursing assistant and Park Nicollet, said. “If you work in health care – no matter what your job is – you are part of the patient’s care. I think the unity shown by our members helped us get this great contract.”

Mayor Melvin Carter speaks during a rally outside United Hospital in St. Paul.

‘You’ve been through a war for us’

Allina workers appeared headed for an unfair-labor-practice (ULP) strike in early May, as talks broke down over the provider’s refusal to budge from a 0% wage increase in the first year of the contract.

Union members staged informational picketing outside several of Allina’s facilities, including United Hospital in downtown St. Paul April 21. Supporters from the labor community, including union nurses at the hospital, walked alongside SEIU members, as did several elected officials.

“You have been through a war for us through this pandemic,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter told union members during a brief rally. “I see the trauma in your eyes. I see the hard work that you have given us, facing down this pandemic every single day.

“We know that we are in such a better place because you have stood between us and this crisis, and we’ve got to stand with you too.”

“You are essential workers, and you are essential to patient care with nurses,” United nurse Emily Sippola, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, told SEIU members. “We can’t do it without all of you, and we will have your back because we know we’re all stronger together for patient care.”

The Allina contract also covers workers at Abbott Northwestern, St. Francis, Mercy, Buffalo, Unity and Owatonna hospitals, as well as Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis.

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With Red Cross blood drive, striking nurses continue to care for community

September 9, 2016 by
Striking United Hospital nurses Jennifer Mlodzik (L) and Linda Clute give blood at a union-sponsored blood drive near their picket line.

Striking United Hospital nurses Jennifer Mlodzik (L) and Linda Clute give blood at a union-sponsored blood drive near their picket line.

Jennifer Mlodzik of Cottage Grove was among the first in line for a blood drive today near the United Hospital picket line, but she probably won’t be the last striking nurse who offers a little gallows humor to the Red Cross technicians.

“Are you guys hiring?” Mlodzik asked the woman about to draw blood from her vein.

As their open-ended strike at five Twin Cities facilities extended into its fifth day, Allina nurses are finding creative ways to keep their spirits up – and to continue to care for their communities.

The blood drive, co-sponsored by the Minnesota Nurses Association and the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. inside the new St. Paul Labor Center, located a block from United Hospital at 353 W. 7th St. Organizers, including United nurse Kelsey Swenson, expect a full slate of donors.

“Doing things to give back to the community helps nurses feel like we’re still taking care of patients while we’re on strike,” said Swenson, who took the lead in arranging the blood drive. “Even though I’m not at the bedside hanging the blood, I’m helping to collect and donate blood on behalf of the nurses. We’re donating and giving back.”

Of course, nurses would rather be at the bedside, but Allina Health has shown it does not share nurses’ commitment to care – or to compromise at the bargaining table.

The provider is spending millions of dollars on wages, travel expenses and lodging for replacement nurses to break the union’s strike. It’s estimated Allina will spend $20 million each week the nurses are on strike, even though the two sides are only about $2 million apart in negotiations, after nurses agreed to steep concessions in their health insurance benefits.

“While nurses are out on strike we are still taking care of our community by donating blood,” United nurse Bunny Engeldorf, a member of MNA’s bargaining team, said. “We are committed to caring for people even when we can’t be at the bedside, where we prefer to be.”

Linda Clute, a post-surgical nurse at United, said the blood drive was a silver lining to an otherwise difficult situation for herself and her colleagues.

“This is a treat for me because bedside nurses don’t get time to give at the hospital blood drives,” Clute said. “We’re too busy.”

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On Labor Day, nearly 5,000 Allina nurses begin open-ended strike (photos & video)

September 5, 2016 by
Picketers walk the sidewalk outside United Hospital in St. Paul shortly after MNA's strike began on Labor Day.

Picketers walk the sidewalk outside United Hospital in St. Paul shortly after MNA’s strike began on Labor Day.

Thousands of Allina nurses and their supporters are spending Labor Day on the picket line, as members of the Minnesota Nurses Association today began an open-ended strike at five Twin Cities facilities.

For the second time this summer, union nurses at United, Abbott Northwestern, Mercy and Unity hospitals and Phillips Eye Institute walked off the job and onto the picket lines, this time in an open-ended strike. Allina nurses staged a seven-day strike at the same facilities in June.

Negotiations on a contract covering nearly 5,000 Allina nurses began in February, and since then the health provider has refused to budge from its demand for steep concessions from nurses on the issue of health insurance. Nurses say Allina negotiators will not even discuss their top priorities – issues like workplace safety and staffing for quality patient care – until they give up their quality, affordable insurance.

At a federally mediated, 22-hour bargaining session that stretched into the early-morning hours Saturday, nurses agreed to phase out their insurance and enter Allina’s preferred plans. But Allina balked at language guaranteeing nurses’ health benefits would not be cut or diminished during the life of the contract, as well as the union’s request to verify the value of Allina insurance plans with independent accountants.

Bunny Engeldorf, a nurse at United Hospital and member of the MNA negotiations team, called Allina’s refusal to compromise disrespectful to nurses.

“It seems like money and control are the only two issues they care about,” Engeldorf said. “We went to the table to talk about staffing and workplace safety, and they went to the table to talk about taking away our health insurance.”

No new negotiation dates have been set, and nurses say they will picket all five Allina facilities, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., until a settlement is reached. [Click for a list of ways you can support Allina nurses in their open-ended strike.]

Angela Becchetti, a nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and union spokesperson, said she thought the two sides were close to a settlement before Allina walked away from the table, noting progress on issues like 24-hour security in emergency rooms and allowing new nurses into the union health plans for a limited time.

“Just like a bully, Allina demanded nurses give up their affordable health insurance plans, and when we agreed to phase them out, they wanted more,” Becchetti said.

Minnesota Reps. Erin Murphy and Tim Mahoney pause for a photo with striking United RN’s.
Nurses picket outside United Hospital during an open-ended strike that began at five Allina Health facilities in the Twin Cities on Labor Day.
Members of St. Paul Federation of Teachers joined the picket line at United Hospital. “It means a lot to be here on Labor Day,” SPFT President Denise Rodriguez said. “There’s strength in solidarity.”
AFSCME Local 1465 members Brenda Thompson and Kevin Habeck joined the United Hospital picket line. Thompson’s mother is a nurse at United.

Teachers, clergy, public employees, elected officials and other supporters walked the picket line alongside nurses at United Hospital this morning. Several unions have delivered notice to Allina of their intent to picket, and delivery drivers reportedly were refusing to drive their vehicles past nurses’ picket lines.

“Nurses are fighting for their own health care, and it’s important that the people who take care of us have the best health care available,” Rep. Tim Mahoney, a retired member of St. Paul Pipefitters Local 455, said from the picket line. “After learning how far the nurses have moved (in negotiations), for Allina to say no to those particulars and force these people out on strike is unconscionable.”

Several picketers, including Rep. Erin Murphy, said the outpouring of solidarity was a poignant reminder of the true meaning of Labor Day.

“Labor Day recognizes all those who came before us who fought for fair working conditions,” said Murphy, who is a registered nurse. “But this is not a fight in our history, it’s a fight that continues into the future, and it’s appropriate that we’re here today on Labor Day.”

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As strike ends, Allina nurses say they’re stronger, more unified than ever

June 25, 2016 by
United nurses kept the energy level high during the final hours of picketing in downtown St. Paul.

United nurses kept the energy level high during the final hours of picketing in downtown St. Paul.

Union nurses at five Allina care centers in the Twin Cities lowered their picket signs at 7 p.m. tonight, marking the end of an historic, seven-day strike that energized and unified members of the Minnesota Nurses Association.

At United Hospital in St. Paul, organizers expanded the picket line to accommodate an influx of supporters eager to see strikers to the finish. In the strike’s closing minutes, picketers huddled together and listened as nurses reflected on the strike and what lies ahead.

“You know this is going to come up again,” United nurse Darla Lowell said into a bullhorn. “Encourage each other, because this is going to be one thing after another.”

MNA members are scheduled to resume staffing Allina’s four metro hospitals – Unity, United, Mercy and Abbot Northwestern – and Phillips Eye Institute at 7 a.m. tomorrow. United nurse Barb Forshier, a member of the union’s bargaining team, said she anticipates some “hard feelings” on the hospital floor in the coming days.

“Now the nurses are angry, and they’re ready to force action,” Forshier said. “We hope that this strike sent a strong message that it’s time to go back and bargain in good faith.”

Nurses are standing together to defend their affordable, quality health insurance plans. Since contract talks began in February, Allina has refused to budge from its demand that nurses give up four union-sponsored insurance options and transition into “core” plans that cover most of Allina’s other employees.

Nurses’ picket lines saw an average attendance of about 2,000 people per day, according to the union. But Allina executives, including CEO Penny Wheeler, have remained unmoved, continuing to insist that nurses give up their high-quality, affordable health insurance as a starting point for negotiations.

“They don’t know who we are,” United nurse Sarah Lake said. “They don’t know how strong we are. They don’t know how much solidarity we have.

“I’ve never been prouder to be a nurse in my life.”

Nurses rallied outside United Hospital in St. Paul during a seven-day strike at Twin Cities Allina Health facilities in June.
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Allina nurses’ strike lines swelling with solidarity

June 22, 2016 by
Striking nurses on the picket line outside United Hospital paused for a photo with members of the St. Paul City Council.

Striking nurses on the picket line outside United Hospital paused for a photo with members of the St. Paul City Council.

 

Allina nurses are walking the picket lines outside five Twin Cities health care facilities this week, but they aren’t walking alone.

Patients, doctors and other health care workers have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with members of the Minnesota Nurses Association over the last four days. So have members of other unions – teachers, musicians, construction workers and others – and elected officials, including members of the St. Paul City Council who walked the picket line with United Hospital nurses today.

“We know that you don’t do this lightly,” Ward 3’s Chris Tolbert told nurses. “There’s something seriously wrong with the negotiations if you guys are willing to go on strike and walk out of that hospital.”

Tolbert marched to the picket line from City Hall after today’s council meeting with Council President Russ Stark (W-4) and council members Dai Thao (W-1), Amy Brendmoen (W-5), Dan Bostrom (W-6) and Jane Prince (W-7). Thao, whose daughter has been convalescing for over a month at nearby Children’s Hospital, said nurses deserve better treatment than they are getting from Allina, which wants to take away their quality, affordable health insurance options.

St. Paul City Council member Dai Thao talked to nurses on the United picket line.

St. Paul City Council member Dai Thao talked to nurses on the United picket line.

“As a person of color and as a parent, it’s already difficult to navigate the system,” Thao said. “But when we got (to Children’s), the nurses – your colleagues – treated our daughter like their own. That means a lot, and I just want folks to know that nurses need to be taken care of too.”

Nurses’ co-workers at Allina facilities feel the same way. Outside Unity Hospital in Fridley, members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota – in their own fight for a first contract with Allina – rallied with MNA nurses. And at United Hospital in St. Paul, licensed practical nurse Vivian Straumann walked off the job after an eight-hour shift and onto the picket line.

Members of MNA supported Straumann’s union during its contract talks last year, she said, and members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota are more than happy to return the favor now.

“I want to see them keep their health care insurance and get back to work,” Straumann said, adding that it’s been difficult working alongside replacement nurses “who you don’t know and who are taking your friends’ jobs.”

Hundreds of unions members like Straumann have volunteered to walk a shift in solidarity with Allina nurses over the last four days. Local unions also have shown solidarity by donating food, cold drinks and other supplies to MNA strikers.

“It might be cliche, but for me it goes back to the old adage, ‘An injury to one is an injury to all,'” said Minneapolis teacher Brionna Harder, a member Education Minnesota who lives in St. Paul. “Nobody wants to go on strike, but when it’s necessary to draw a line,  we have to stand arm in arm with our brothers and sisters.”

Earlier in the day, Allina’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Education Minnesota demanding members like Harder stop picketing outside its facilities. In a written response, Education Minnesota President Denise Specht dismissed the attorney’s threats, adding that they will likely make educators even more eager to support striking nurses.

“Education Minnesota cares deeply about this issue,” Specht wrote in a response to Allina’s letter. “This is more than just solidarity with our colleagues in organized labor. Our 86,000 members work with students during the flu season. They get sick. When they do, we want them treated by healthy nurses with easy access to quality health care themselves. The outcome of this dispute affects us all.

“You can follow the participation of educators of Minnesota on our social media sites. We are sure you know where to find us.”

Council Member Chris Tolbert of Ward 3
Council Member Jane Prince of Ward 7
Council Member Amy Brendmoen of Ward 5.

MNA is updating its Facebook page regularly with videos of elected officials and other supporters visiting the Allina picket lines. Sign up for a shift on the strike line at allinastrike.com.

Nurses are also asking supporters to sign onto a petition asking to Allina to drop its efforts to shift $10 million in health care costs onto nurses and their families. The petition is online at nursesneedcare2.com.

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Photos: Picket lines go up as 5,000 Allina nurses begin strike

June 19, 2016 by
Nurses and supporters picketed outside United Hospital in St. Paul.

Nurses and supporters picketed outside United Hospital in St. Paul.

Nearly 5,000 nurses employed by Allina Health began a seven-day strike this morning, setting up picket lines outside five metro-area facilities.

In downtown St. Paul, well over 200 nurses and their supporters blanketed the sidewalk outside United Hospital in red, the Minnesota Nurses Association’s official color. Picketers put up cheers as nurses finishing the night shift walked out of the facility and onto the strike line.

“To see this many nurses on the outside, you know something is wrong on the inside,” United labor and delivery nurse Christine Hicks said.

Nurses are standing together to defend their affordable, quality health insurance plans. Since contract talks began in February, Allina has refused to budge from its demand that nurses give up four union-sponsored insurance options and transition into “core” plans that cover most of Allina’s other employees.

“We hear a lot of our co-workers complaining about those plans,” United physical rehabilitation nurse Barbara Slagg said. “Some insurance plans seem cheaper until you actually access the care. Then you pay huge amounts out of pocket.”

Slagg, whose unit at the hospital has been shut down for the duration of the strike, said union negotiators have been unable to gain access to the information necessary to adequately compare Allina’s core plans to the MNA options. She also said Allina refused to bargain over nurses’ staffing and safety concerns “until we complied with their demand to give up our insurance.”

In response, the union filed charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations board. Under federal law, union members can engage in an unfair labor practice strike without fear of retaliation. The nurses’ employment is protected under federal law.

“It hasn’t been a negotiation,” Hicks said. “Allina has held other issues hostage until we give in on the insurance.”

Nurses are also on strike at Unity, Abbott-Northwestern and Mercy hospitals, as well as Phillips Eye Institute.

Supporters are welcome ­– and appreciated – on the picket line, according to the union. MNA has posted a sign-up form for picketers at allinastrike.com.

Nurses are also asking supporters to sign onto a petition asking to Allina to drop its efforts to shift $10 million in health care costs onto nurses and their families. The petition is online at nursesneedcare2.com.

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