Minneapolis, MN – On July 21, 435 Planned Parenthood workers from Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska joined the Service Employees International Union, Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa (SEIU HCMN&IA) in a resounding 90.1% yes vote. 238 workers voted to join the union, and only 26 voted not to.

The Planned Parenthood workers began working with organizers at SEIU HCMN&IA in early summer of 2021. Over the next year they built an organizing committee among their coworkers with workers from all five states represented on the committee and wide representation from the 28 locations involved.

In May of 2022 they felt they finally had a strong enough organizing committee to move forward and began talking to coworkers and having them sign union cards committing to join the union. They quickly got over 30% of their coworkers signed up in under a week. Things were moving quickly, and then in early May the Supreme Court leaked that it was about to overturn Roe versus Wade which rocked the abortion rights world.

At the same time as their lives were in chaos from the leak, the organizing committee held a long late-night meeting and decided that now more than ever they needed to go forward with their push to unionize. Coming out of that meeting they went on to get a majority of their coworkers signed up on union cards which they filed with the NLRB to trigger a union election after requesting voluntary recognition of their union from Planned Parenthood.

Despite a majority having already signed cards committing their support for forming a union, Planned Parenthood refused to voluntarily recognize, so the workers went forward to an election held by the NLRB to get their union legally recognized. That process resulted in an election by mail which began on June 27 with ballots due back to the NLRB by July 19.

During the election the lives of Planned Parenthood workers were once again rocked when the Supreme Court did in fact overturn Roe v. Wade. But the workers pushed forward and when the ballots were counted on July 21, the workers got their union recognized through their 90.1% yes vote.

Mimi Arabalo is a bilingual health educator for Planned Parenthood in the Omaha area and had the following to say, “In my time here I have seen my incredible frontline colleagues go above and beyond for our patients and community, often at the cost of themselves. We have served our roles without breaks, without pay equity, and without a seat at the table to have a say in our own working conditions.”

Arabalo continued, “Today’s election results show that we have had enough. We still stand with our patients and our communities, but we cannot stand with Planned Parenthood without standing up for ourselves. There is no Planned Parenthood without us. We can’t care for our communities if we aren’t being cared for, and forming this union is a way for us to have some accountability for that care.”

Now that they have formed their union, the workers will move forward into bargaining their first union contract as members of SEIU HCMN&IA.

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #SEIU #SEIUHealthCareMN #PlannedParenthood

Minneapolis, MN – At 6:30 a.m., March 14, around 100 workers at Minnesota Epilepsy Group (MEG) walked off the job and began a five-day Unfair Labor Practice strike. The striking workers are EEG technologists and EEG associates – union members represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. When on the job, the MEG workers perform Electroencephalogram (EEG) tests to detect abnormalities in people’s brain waves and electrical activity in the brain.

At the beginning of negotiating their next union contract management had signaled that they were looking to get a deal done and bargain in in good faith with the union members. However later on when bargaining was well underway, management took a drastic turn in their approach, proposing to eliminate longevity step increases moving forward for all MEG employees, creating a two-tier system where new employees coming on would not ever move from their initial pay rate, even if they worked at MEG for 30 or more years. The employer is also offering a wage increase of only .75%.

While many of the current MEG employees are at the top of the scale, the union members see that this is an attack on their union and on their coworkers. At that point they decided it was time to fight back against the employer’s attack on their union contract. They decided it was time to strike. The held a vote and by a unanimous vote they authorized a strike.

The strike is being held throughout the week of March 14 through March 18, with picket lines at various times across three locations. Picket lines are being held on sidewalks in front of Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis and United Hospital in Saint Paul. While the strike is not against those hospitals, MEG is a service provider to Allina Health and the workers perform services out of those locations. The union members are also picketing in Roseville where the MEG office is located.

Renee David is an EEG Technologist at MEG and she said, “We had a 100% member vote to strike. We decided it was time to stand up for ourselves and get something we deserve. We are standing up against the extremely low wage offer we received. After a really long stretch of being at work in the pandemic climate, we are just not ready to settle for .75%. The employer wants to abolish our extremely long-standing system where is has a built-in longevity wage increase, so if that goes away then everyone would be stuck at zero. It wouldn’t matter how long how long you would be here, you would essentially be making the same wage as when someone walks in the door. This is important for the future of anybody who comes in here, it is important for the people who are here now want to stay, and just getting rid of a system that has been in place for so long that is a benefit to us, just seems silly. Why would we give that up?”

David continued, “We are not out here asking for a lot. We are just another group of healthcare workers who are standing up to a system that has burnt us out. We’re not only standing up for our department, we are standing up for EEG technologists all around the nation and for anyone who works in healthcare.”

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #SEIU #strike #Strikes #SEIUHealthCareMN #MinnesotaEpilepsyGroup

Albert Lea, MN – Members and supporters of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota on the picket line Dec. 19, in a one-day Unfair Labor Practice strike at Mayo Clinic’s Albert Lea Hospital. Mayo refused to bargain with the union in good faith.

#AlbertLeaMN #strike #Strikes #mayo #SEIUHealthCareMN