Today marks the official start to formal employment contract negotiations between 12,000 Minnesota Nurses and six Twin Cities hospital systems. Below is an overview of the key issues and some facts and statistics.
ISSUE SUMMARY
- More than 12,000 Minnesota Nurses formally began labor contract negotiations with six Twin Cities hospital systems (North Memorial, HealthEast, Allina, Methodist, Children’s and Fairview) on March 16, 2010.
- Key issues during the negotiations include nurse-to-patient staffing ratios and the hospitals’ desire to slash the nurses’ long-standing pension plan benefits by one-third.
KEY DATES
- March 16, 2010: First day of employment contract bargaining.
- March 27, 2010: All Nurse Rally for Patient Safety, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Hopkins High School.
- May 10, 2010: Final week of bargaining begins.
- May 19, 2010: Minnesota Nurses vote at RiverCentre, St. Paul to either ratify a contract or authorize a strike.
RN STRIKE HISTORY
- The last time there was a strike by Minnesota Nurses was in 2001, when nurses from Fairview Hospitals went on strike for 23 days.
- The largest strike by RNs in Minnesota history was 1984, when 6,000 RNs across the state walked off the job for 35 days. It remains the largest RN strike in U.S. history.
KEY STATS
Pension
- Established in 1962, the nurses’ pension plan currently costs Twin Cities hospitals about $80 million a year to fund.
- The hospitals make more than $7 billion a year in revenue. Thus the nurses’ pension costs are roughly 1.14 percent out of the hospitals’ yearly revenue.
- The hospitals want to cut the nurses’ pension benefit by one-third.
Staffing
- If hospitals would reduce RN-to-patient ratios to 1-to-4, more than 72,000 deaths would be prevented each year. (Medical Care Journal of the American Public Health Association, August 2005)
- Patients cared for in hospitals with higher RN staffing levels were 68 percent less likely to acquire a preventable infection. (Medical Care Journal of the American Public Health Association, 2007)
MNA HISTORY & MISSION STATEMENT
- Established in 1905, the Minnesota Nurses Association represents more than 20,000 nurses across the state.
- MNA’s mission is to ensure professional distinction and personal dignity for nurses and advocacy for our patients in Minnesota. No other association possesses the knowledge and the means to fight and influence on all the playing fields – on the political front, at the bargaining table, in the practice arena and in the community.
- The members of MNA make important contributions by continuing to:
- Shape practice guidelines with reason and foresight.
- Defend nurses who speak up against situations that put patients in jeopardy.
- Deliver new research that quantifies and attests to the importance of nursing’s role.
- Campaign in the workplace and the public eye to change the work environment so nurses can, in all good faith, recruit young people to become skilled nursing professionals, and assume their rightful position at any table discussing different methods of patient care delivery.