Essentia Health clinic workers and Advanced Practice Providers end historic ULP strike

Contact: Shannon Cunningham

651-269-1418

Shannon.Cunningham@mnnurses.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Duluth, MN) – July 22, 2025 – Hundreds of frontline caregivers at Essentia Health will return to work following a powerful Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike. The group includes over 300 clinic nurses and 400 Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) who walked off the job to expose Essentia executives’ refusal to negotiate in good faith and their numerous ULPs, such as threats of violence against striking workers and interference in union activities. The two-week first contract ULP strike of clinic nurses and healthcare workers will end Wednesday morning. The 13-day APP ULP strike ends today, Tuesday, July 22. As the strikes conclude, caregivers are returning to their patients with renewed determination to stop their employer’s ULPs so they can bargain fair contracts that protect the standards of care their communities deserve.

Nurses on strike represented Essentia 1st Street, 2nd Street, 3rd Street, Superior Clinics, and Miller Hill Surgery Center as well as healthcare workers at Solvay Hospice House. APPs from 69 facilities across Northeast Minnesota and Wisconsin also participated, representing critical rural professionals including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives, and clinical nurse specialists.

The decision to end the strike at this time comes after Essentia Health agreed to combine the four groups of clinic nurses into one negotiating block and agreed to additional negotiating dates for all first contract workers. Healthcare workers are emboldened that their sacrifice forced movement at the bargaining table. After months of employer delays, MNA members are finally seeing movement from Essentia to bargain in good faith. Prior to the strike and during it, MNA offered to meet every day to make progress, while Essentia agreed to only three sessions, choosing to pay for expensive replacement workers instead. Without this collective pressure, no progress would have been made. Negotiations resumed Wednesday and Friday last week, but while nurses and healthcare workers were ready to meet for as long as it took to reach an agreement, Essentia walked away from the table on both days.

“For too long, outpatient care has been treated like an afterthought,” said Dana Bukovich, an RN at Essentia’s Superior Clinic. “We’ve made it clear that patients in clinics deserve the same safe standards as patients in hospitals—and we won’t stop until they get them.”

Meanwhile, Essentia continues to stonewall APPs through a stalled legal appeal to the National Labor Relations Board. MNA is clear: the appeal does not exempt Essentia from bargaining. These providers formed a legally certified union, and ignoring their voice is unlawful and shortsighted.

While contracts remain unresolved for both APPs and clinic nurses, this strike has fundamentally reshaped expectations. The ULP strikes brought long-overdue visibility to the standard for outpatient care. For the first time in Minnesota history, clinic nurses, healthcare workers, and APPs united in collective action, walking out together to protest their employer’s ULPs and demand more for their patients.  Their solidarity brought critical issues to light, galvanized public support, and placed rural healthcare at the forefront of the conversation.  These caregivers are returning to their patients not in retreat, but with renewed determination to protect the standards of care their communities deserve.

“This wasn’t just a strike in Duluth,” said Kelly Higgins, an Advanced Practice Provider for Essentia Health. “Rural providers, small-town clinics — we all showed up. We made sure people saw the real story: care in our communities is on the line, and we’re ready to fight for it.”

Importantly, the unfair labor practice charges filed by MNA against Essentia remain active and unresolved. These charges will not be withdrawn until Essentia shows demonstrated action to resolve them. Hospital executives must be held accountable for retaliation and union-busting tactics that undermine workers’ efforts.

This campaign has redefined what healthcare workers in Duluth- and across Minnesota- are willing to fight for. From clinics to hospital floors, from RNs to APPs, the message is clear: patients must come first. The current system leads to higher readmissions, increased workplace violence and injury, and poorer patient outcomes. But when caregivers are empowered with a voice in decision-making, the quality of care improves- for everyone.