The announcement was made by MNA President Mary Turner, who is an RN in the intensive care unit at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale, an inner suburb of Minneapolis. Turner said, “We have been at the bargaining table for eight long months. When we came back from our three-day strike in September, the nurses and our bargaining teams, we were all hopeful that our hospital executives would finally be ready to bargain in good faith. At North [Memorial] have met at the bargaining table 27 times since this all started back in March, including nine meetings since the strike ended. So we have been diligently at the table the whole time but while nurses have done everything we can to reach an agreement at the bargaining table, hospital executives have instead pursued unfair labor practices against our union.”

Turner went on to announce, “I am here to tell you that that is not going to work. What it has done is caused us to lose faith in the bargaining process. And because of that, that is why we are here today to announce that our 15,000 nurses who are at the bargaining table will vote again on November 30 to authorize another possible strike at 15 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Twin Ports areas. Our hospital leaders have failed. They have failed us, they have failed the community, they have failed to solve the crisis conditions in our hospitals and they have failed to settle a fair contract with us.”

If the nurses vote to authorize a strike, that does not set a strike in motion. What it does do is authorize the bargaining team to call a strike. It is unclear at this time when that strike would occur and if it would be an open-ended strike or one of limited duration.

#StPaulMN #strike #MinnesotaNursesAssociationMNA

Minneapolis, MN – Thirteen members of WAMM (Women Against Military Madness) joined the striking Allina nurses on the Abbott Northwestern picket line Sunday afternoon, Sept. 18. WAMM member Margaret Sarfehjooy, a nurse at Fairview Southdale hospital said, “We understand the importance of community support for these nurses and Minnesota Nurses Association as Allina tries to bust their union.”

“WAMM will continue to support this very important strike for as long as it takes and encourages all Twin Cities residents to come out and support these heroic nurses,” said Sarah Martin.

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At the opening of the August 1 negotiations session, the nurse negotiating team resubmitted the proposal from July 22 that met the hospital company half way by ending two of the four contract health insurance plans. Nurses have been negotiating a new three-year contract with Allina since February.

“We met Allina halfway, and that’s as far as nurses will go,” said Angela Becchetti, a registered nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. “We’ve bargained in good faith with Allina for six months now, even when they haven’t.”

MNA filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board over Allina’s refusal to provide information about the costs of the health insurance plans. Nurses have been asking Allina what parts of the plans are so costly that they need elimination. Allina has continually refused to provide critical data for negotiations, which prompted nurses to stage a seven-day strike that started on June 19.

“Nurses don’t want to strike again,” Becchetti said, “but they’re angry over how Allina has treated them during these negotiations. Now, they just want an offer to vote on.”

Allina responded by proposing to cut two of the nurses’ health plans immediately, and ending the Choice and Advantage plans when they dip below 1000 participants. Allina would also cause nurses to bear the brunt of all future premium increases, which would force them to opt out of those two remaining plans.

“Allina still gets to decide how much the plans cost,” Becchetti said. “They can price the plans out of existence and still not tell us what causes them to go up. They’re putting our health plans on an expensive death spiral.”

A separate vote will take place at each of Allina’s five metro facilities: Abbott Northwestern, Mercy, Phillips Eye Institute, United, and Unity hospitals. Nurses will vote to accept or reject the offer. A vote to reject the offer is also a vote to authorize another strike. If a super-majority of no votes is reached, the nurses’ negotiating team decides the length of any strike as well as the start date.

“The strike brought nurses together,” Becchetti said. “And everything Allina has told us has only unified us even more. Nurses are prepared to protect their benefits.”

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #strike #MinnesotaNursesAssociationMNA #Nursing

Allina took the position in contract negotiations that it wanted huge changes in the current health care plans that would shift more costs to the nurses.

Allina says it will hire scabs to staff the hospitals.

A statement from the MNA notes, “Under the National Labor Relations Act, union members can engage in an unfair labor practice strike without fear of retaliation. The nurses’ employment is protected under federal law.”

Many in the Twin Cites labor movement are making plans to join the nurses on the picket lines.

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A June 24 statement from the Minnesota Nurses Association notes, “Our nurses spent more than 13 hours today doing our best to stay hopeful about negotiations. Unfortunately, zero progress was made. Despite today’s setback, our nurses offered to return to the bargaining table again on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and every other day until a contract agreement can be reached. Instead, the Twin Cities Hospitals responded that the earliest they could meet would be sometime next week.”

The MNA statement continues “It has become beyond obvious to our nurses that the Twin Cities Hospitals, despite what they continue to say publicly, have no interest in meaningful or good faith negotiations. MNA had agreed not to file a 10-day strike notice if meaningful, productive negotiations were taking place. Since that is not the case, our nurses will be filing a formal 10-day strike notice tomorrow morning, June 25, 2010.”

On June 26, the MNA held a Picnic for Patient Safety, where hundreds of patients, politicians and nurses gathered to talk about unsafe staffing and its impact on nurses, patients and their families. Twin Cities nurses file more than 1200 unsafe staffing forms each year and have been seeking solutions to the staffing issues since the 1990s.

The next negotiation meeting will take place on June 29, which is the only day the hospitals would agree to. The MNA will hold strike preparation meetings on June 30.

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