Workers with the Minnesota Nurses Association. A worker holds up a sign that reads, “Patients before profits”.
Update: July 11, 9:14 a.m.
On July 10, Advanced Practice Providers joined the strike against Essentia. There are now picket lines in Duluth, Superior, and Virginia, Minnesota.
“Essentia often speaks about their values—Quality, Hospitality, Respect, Joy, Justice, Stewardship, and Teamwork—and how they live those values each day,” Vicky Brady, Nurse Practitioner, said in a press statement from the Minnesota Nurses Association.
“Unfortunately, that has not been reflected in their treatment of advanced practice providers,” she said. “They have not shown respect by meeting us at the bargaining table. They have not honored the legal obligation outlined in the NLRB’s ruling to begin negotiations, even while their appeal is pending. And they have committed various other unfair labor practices in the meantime, like making changes to our working conditions without negotiating with us.”
Update: July 8, 8:03 a.m.
On the morning of July 8, hundreds of nurses went out on a ULP strike, charging that their employers are failing to bargain in good faith. About 300 workers are affected by the strike against Essentia’s 1st Street, 2nd Street, 3rd Street, and Superior Clinics, Essentia’s Miller Hill Surgery Center, and Solvay Hospice House.
Kate Mathewson is one of those nurses on strike today. Mathewson is a registered nurse at the Essentia Second Street Clinic in Duluth, Minn. She has worked at the clinic for almost three years in the diabetes and endocrinology department and specializes in diabetes care and education.
Mathewson says that she and other nurses are feeling disrespected at the bargaining table and seeing very little movement from Essentia to come to an agreement. “They’re not agreeing to basic contract language, not even the big picture items, not even basic contract language of leaves of absences or something as simple as jury duty,” says Mathewson.
The picket line is filled with passionate nurses who want to come to an agreement and end the strike, says Mathewson. “There’s a lot of emotion on the line. None of us wanted to be here.” But after 18 months of negotiations and the hospital offering only two days of meetings over the next month, nurses felt like they had few other options.
The strike is open-ended and Mathewson says they will stay on the line as long as it takes to bring Essentia back to the table and bargain in good-faith.
Earlier:
On July 8 and 10, hundreds of healthcare workers in Minnesota could go out on strike. They are nurses and physician assistants who are members of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) who are upset about what they say is unsafe staffing, as well as unfair management behavior at the bargaining table.
From rural communities in the Duluth-area to the heart of the Twin Cities metro area, healthcare workers are voting to strike, and filing charges of unfair labor practices (ULPs) against their employers.
Essentia’s 1st Street, 2nd Street, 3rd Street, and Superior Clinics, Essentia’s Miller Hill Surgery Center, and Solvay Hospice House are set to strike on July 8 after filing a ULP against hospital executives for failing to “bargain in good faith and meaningfully engage in an effort to find common solutions,” according to a press release from MNA.
Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) with Essentia Health’s East Market, for the first time, have announced a strike beginning the morning of July 10. On June 30, 400 APPs at 69 different facilities filed a ULP charge against the health system—alleging failure to recognize the union and bargain in good faith.
Together the likely strikes affect around 700 workers, MNA says.
In some cases, healthcare workers have reached tentative agreements, but these still face a member vote. On July 3, Allina Health, M Health Fairview, Children’s Hospital, HealthPartners, and Essentia Hospital in Superior, Wis. and Duluth reached tentative agreements. According to a MNA spokesperson, St. Luke’s will likely be finalizing a tentative agreement on July 7.
“APPs are holding this system together and are essential in making sure patients in rural communities still have access to timely, quality care,” said Ann Vreeland, a nurse practitioner from Aurora, Minn., in a June 30 statement from the MNA. AAPs include nurse practitioners and physician assistants, essential roles in providing care alongside registered nurses and physicians.
The APPs, who formed their union in 2024, allege “unlawful retaliation, intimidation, and sweeping changes to assignments.” Additionally, workers claim “unsustainable staffing levels, corporate interference in clinical decisions, and restrictive non-compete clauses,” which further limits rural Minnesotans’ access to healthcare.
On June 23, over 15,000 nurses from 13 hospitals across the Twin Cities and Duluth authorized an unfair labor practice strike. While some groups have reached agreements with their employers, nurses claim hospitals are not bargaining in good faith, especially regarding safe staffing levels, the top concern for nurses, according to the union, and may still strike.
According to a report by the Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota has seen its ninth straight year of increasing preventable harm across Minnesota hospitals and surgery centers. Nurses attribute the concerning trend to the profession’s historically low staffing levels and are describing the findings as a “wake-up call”.
In a statement from MNA, Chris Rubesch, the union’s president, argues that having more nurses at the bedside saves lives. The press release states, “Research and experience show that safe staffing levels reduce complications and save lives.”
As nurses are leaving the industry due to high-stress and ever-growing workloads, the MNA president explains the importance of moving away from terms like “burnout” and instead referring to nurses’ overwork as “moral injury.”
Rubesch argues that this shifts away from placing the blame on workers’ ability to cope and instead focuses on the conditions that make nurses unable to deliver the kind of care they are trained to provide. Moral injury, Rubesch explains, is one of the reasons why nurses are leaving the profession and hospitals are failing to retain experienced nurses.
MNA nurses are not the only healthcare professionals fighting for good contracts. Members of Doctors Council with Service Employees International Union (SEIU), including Allina doctors, physicians’ assistants, and nurse practitioners, voted with 90% support for a ULP strike at the end of June.
In a press release from SEIU’s Doctors Council, Cora Walsh, a family medicine provider at Allina West St. Paul, states that workers voted to strike because they “aren’t seeing movement on issues that matter most to our membership including sick time, vacation time, and time away to deal with the demanding job we do.”
On July 1, the workers held their first ever informational picket outside of four Allina locations. The healthcare workers, who unionized in 2023, have been bargaining for a first contract for the past 15 months.
In a statement from Doctors Council – SEIU, Victoria Chiou, a family medicine and obstetrics provider at Allina Cottage Grove, Minn. says, “We were running on fumes prior to the pandemic, and after so many left medicine, now we’re running on empty.” Chiou goes on to issue a warning to the industry, saying, “If we continue to lose primary care providers, or do not help make a primary care career more appealing for new providers, our collective future health is at stake.”