FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nurses in Twin Cities and Twin Ports are now working without contracts as hospital executives refuse solutions to short-staffing, retention and better patient care
VIDEO: Video of today’s announcement can be found at this link.
(St. Paul) – August 11, 2022 – Nurses with the Minnesota Nurses Association today announced that they will hold a strike vote on Monday, August 15, 2022, as 15,000 nurses in the Twin Cities and Twin Ports fight for fair contracts to hold healthcare executives accountable to put patients before profits. If passed by a supermajority of nurses, the vote would authorize nurse negotiation leaders to call a strike following a 10-day notice to hospital employers. Such a strike of 15,000 nurses would be one of the largest nurses strikes in U.S. history, and would be the first time Twin Cities and Twin Ports nurses took such an action together in contract negotiations.
“Hospital executives with million-dollar salaries have created a crisis of retention and care in our healthcare system, as more nurses are leaving the bedside, putting quality patient care at risk,” said Mary C. Turner, RN at North Memorial Hospital and President of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “Nurses do not take this decision lightly, but we are determined to take a stand at the bargaining table, and on the sidewalk if necessary, to put patients before profits in our hospitals.”
The strike authorization vote comes as nurses have negotiated for five months with hospital executives, and have worked without contracts for the last several months. While hospital CEOs with million-dollar salaries have refused to negotiate with nurses over solutions to the crises of short-staffing, retention and patient care that the same executives’ corporate healthcare policies created, the problems in our hospitals are getting worse: recent studies have found that more nurses are planning to leave the bedside while adverse events for patients are increasing.
“Corporate healthcare policies in our hospitals have left nurses understaffed and overworked, while patients are overcharged, local hospitals and services are closed, and executives take home million-dollar paychecks,” said Chris Rubesch, RN at Essentia in Duluth and First Vice President of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “Nurses have one priority in our hospitals, to take care of our patients, and we are determined to fight for fair contracts so nurses can stay at the bedside to provide the quality care our patients deserve.”
Since negotiations began in March, nurses have pressed hospital executives both at the bargaining table and in public over the need to negotiate with nurses to solve the crises of short-staffing, retention and care in our hospitals. Nurses held informational pickets at 15 hospitals throughout the state in June, launched an advertising campaign exposing the effects of corporate healthcare policies in Minnesota hospitals and last week announced that nurses had voted “No Confidence” in hospital executives.
Minnesota hospital CEOs have refused to address these issues in negotiations with nurses, leading nurses to take Monday’s vote to authorize a strike of 15,000 Minnesota nurses. While nurses seek solutions to short staffing and retention, hospital executives have insisted on focusing on wages. Despite the fact that many hospital executives continue to earn significant raises on their million-dollar salaries, these same CEOs are offering nurses average annual increases of only around 3 percent, well below the current rate of inflation and climbing cost of living. Hospital CEOs with million-dollar salaries can afford to put Patients Before Profits in our hospital and to do right by Minnesota nurses.