Over 500 nurses picket Allina Hospitals for health care and safe staffing
Minneapolis, MN – Over 500 registered nurses from Allina Hospitals across Minnesota joined together and picketed outside of Allina Corporate Headquarters on Chicago Avenue and Lake Street in Minneapolis, May 19. The nurses have been in a fight with Allina Health, with whom they are bargaining for a new contract.
Allina is the most profitable health care system in the Twin Cities metro area, yet they are insisting on changing the RN’s health care plan from one that provides good affordable health care to the same one they offer their non-union employees. This would leave many of them paying over $520 a month for the health insurance they need just to go to the very same hospitals that they work at and provide care at every day.
Additionally, the nurses are fighting for a strong voice in staffing and safety decisions that would ensure that Allina hospitals are a good place for patients to get care in the communities they live in, and that Allina hospitals would be a safe place to work free from injuries and other dangers associated with the kind of short staffing that has been an issue in the past.
Allina has a clear choice. They can continue to go down this destructive path and allow their greed to hurt their employees and patients, or they can continue to offer these health care workers the health care plans they deserve and agree to be a partner in ensuring safe staffing levels by letting the RNs have a voice in staffing decisions.
The choice is Allina’s to make but one thing is clear, this is just the beginning. The May 19 show of force was just a small taste of what is to come and the nurses will not stop until they win the contract they deserve and make Allina hospitals safe for patients and for workers.