Press Release: Nurses Take Their Case for a Contract to the Allina Board of Directors

Contact:  Rick Fuentes

(o) 651-414-2863
(c) 612-741-0662
rick.fuentes@mnnurses.org

Barbara Brady

(o) 651-414-2849
(c) 651-202-0845
barbara.brady@mnnurses.org

 

Minneapolis – September 7, 2016 – Nurses with the Minnesota Nurses Association are requesting to present their case for a fair contract directly to the Allina Health Board of Directors.  Nurses believe the Allina negotiating team is not delivering accurate information to hospital leadership and the board, which is prolonging the strike.“Allina Health will spend $20 million every week the nurses are on strike,” said Rose Roach, MNA executive director.  “How can the stewards of a not-for-profit healthcare company allow that to happen when we were just $2 million away from a deal at the bargaining table?”

Talks between Allina negotiators and the nurses’ negotiating team broke off at 6 a.m. Saturday, September 3, when the hospital team left the table.  Federal mediators involved in negotiations told nurses the hospital team felt they were too far apart and that the hospitals’ team would not respond to a pending proposal by nurses.

“As the members of the board, they have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure decisions being made are in the best interests of the hospitals,” Roach said.  “Allowing Allina to take away good healthcare coverage from nurses, alienating a vital employee group, and hemorrhaging money through replacement worker agencies is not being a good trustee of a community resource.”

MNA is sending a formal letter to the Allina Board Chair, John Church, to request time on the agenda at the next meeting.  Nurses are also taking the request to the internet and buying ads on social media channels asking individual board members to act.  The ads target Church, a vice\ president at General Mills; Mark Jordhal, president of US Bank Wealth Management; Debra Schoneman, chief financial officer for Piper Jaffray; and Sally Smith, chief executive officer of Buffalo Wild Wings.

(A copy of the letter and the ads are on MNA’s website)

“The nurses have been reading what Allina has been telling the media,” said Angela Becchetti, Registered Nurse at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and a member of the nurses’ negotiating team.  “If the board is hearing the same thing, they’re not getting accurate information about what’s been going on.  They’re in the dark.  They need to hear how their negotiating team has treated nurses over the past seven months.”

Nurses began negotiating with Allina in February for a new three-year contract, but during the first six months of talks, hospital negotiators would only discuss the termination of nurses’ health insurance plans and not nurses’ proposals to address workplace safety concerns and staffing improvements.

MNA has filed new Unfair Labor Practice charges against Allina Health for surface bargaining or failing to negotiate fairly at the table, which is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

No new negotiations have been set.

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3 Comments

  1. If the Allina Board is truly on the outside of what has been happening in “negotiations” then Allina Health is in serious legal trouble. The vast amounts of money they are spending with the clear intent of busting our union, is certainly a huge waste of my and all of our money! Not only do I work for Allina, I pay for my health insurance and I pay taxes and I for one, will not stand quietly while Allina misuses the $ belonging to the citizens for their greed driven agenda.
    They are a loose bunch of coconuts and they need to be tapped!
    ENOUGH!!!
    Michelle RN

  2. Nurses on strike fighting a war that you already lost
    Just wait until Alina locks you out
    U and upur outdated healthcare cannot fight a giant
    You will have no job to strike for
    GET BACK TO WORK or found some-other place that will hire you

  3. Go back to school, Jojo and learn how to spell!

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