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(St. Paul) – January 19, 2016 – Minnesota Nurses Association members from five metro hospital systems ratified a new three-year contract that will give them across-the-board wage increases and protect their pensions and health benefits.

The new contract affects 7,000 nurses from Bethesda, Children’s Minneapolis, Children’s St. Paul, Fairview Riverside, Fairview Southdale, Methodist, North Memorial, St. Joseph’s, and St. John’s hospitals.

Last week, nurses authorized their bargaining teams to enter into wage-only negotiations with five of the six hospital systems in the Metro Twin Cities. Only Allina hospital management refused to bargain a wages-only. MNA members and their employers agreed on a tentative agreement on January 14 that established a 2 percent raise for each year of the three-year contract.
… Read more about: Press Release: Nurses Ratify Agreement on New Three-Year Contract  »

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By Rick Fuentes,  MNA  Communications Specialist

It was no surprise to hear Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders declare his support for Single Payer healthcare during last weekend’s Presidential debate.  Sanders has long been a proponent of a system that creates “Medicare for All.”  That model would cover everyone in the country through a publicly funded agency that paid for services to every provider in the country.  After all, Sanders’ home state of Vermont adopted a Single Payer system that covered almost everyone in 2011.  Green Mountain Care, as it’s called, was due to be fully implemented by 2017 (it’s since been put on hold indefinitely).
… Read more about: Single Payer Healthcare Becoming Big Part of Debate  »

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January 15, 2016

(St. Paul) – January 15, 2016 – Twin Cities nurses represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association agreed to terms of a new three-year contract with five of the six hospital systems.  Nurses will vote to ratify the tentative agreement on Tuesday, January 19, 2016.  The MNA negotiations team is recommending nurses ratify the agreement.

The new contract begins June 1, 2016 and covers 6,000 nurses at Fairview Southdale and Riverside facilities, Children’s Minneapolis and St. Paul hospitals, Methodist, North Memorial Medical Center, and HealthEast’s Bethesda, St. Joeseph’s, and St. John’s hospitals.  Current benefits, including health coverage and pensions, would carry over to the new contract.
… Read more about: Press Release: Nurses, Hospitals Reach Tentative Agreement on New Three Year Contract  »

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In: Home, Issues, Minnesota Nurses Association, Nursing, Patient Safety

Mat Keller headshot

By Mathew Keller RN JD, Regulatory and Policy Nursing Specialist

 

“If you don’t stay and work extra, who will take the admission that’s coming?  There’s no one else.”

Sound familiar?

If you’ve been told by your nurse manager that you must work “mandatory” overtime, don’t buy it!  Under Minnesota state law, nurses cannot be disciplined for refusing overtime if, in the nurse’s judgment, it would be unsafe for the patient.

Study after study show that unplanned overtime assignments have a high potential to be unsafe.
… Read more about: Mandatory overtime: just say no  »

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In: Activism, Home, Minnesota Nurses Association

Nurses throughout Minnesota know of instances of employers intimidating and retaliating against staff for a wide variety reasons, like reporting unsafe staffing,  speaking up when they disagree with a program or pilot, reporting managerial unethical or illegal behavior, engaging in union activities, and many more.

These types of incidents can cause managers and administration some headaches, but they are all part of the ebb and flow of the employer-employee relationship. Unless, of course, the employee is punished for legal and ethical actions.

Unfortunately, retaliation in the workplace is all too commonplace – and not just in hospitals.

For nurses, the opportunities for retaliation are higher than in many other fields.
… Read more about: Retaliation is a real issue in nursing  »

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Mat Keller headshot
By Mathew Keller RN JD, Regulatory and Policy Nursing Specialist

It is with growing concern that MNA has received reports of increasingly ineffective charge nurse utilization in our hospitals.  If you’ve been in nursing for more than a few years, you’ve seen the trend yourself: charge nurses have quickly gone from having no patient assignment, to having a few admits or discharges as needed, to always having half of an assignment, to always having a full assignment… to having two floors?

This alarming new trend is to assign the nurse variously described as a given unit’s “resource,” “foreperson,” and “air-traffic controller” to two units at once.
… Read more about: Is this the End of the Charge Nurse as We Know It?  »