FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shannon Cunningham
(651) 269-1418
Shannon.Cunningham@mnnurses.org
Duluth, Minn – June 24, 2025 – Multiple groups of nurses, healthcare workers and Advanced Practice Providers at Essentia Health and Aspirus-St. Luke’s voted on Monday to authorize Unfair Labor Practice strikes at their facilities. The votes follow months of negotiations in which the hospital corporation executives failed to bargain in good faith and failed to meaningfully engage in an effort to find common solutions around enforceable measures to protect patient safety and improve nurse staffing levels, and in some cases refused to negotiate at all. Instead, healthcare workers have been met with illegal Unfair Labor Practices, which have made negotiating with Essentia and Aspirus difficult.
In recent months, nurses and healthcare workers have witnessed their employers adopting increasingly divisive strategies—ranging from distorting key information and withholding essential bargaining information to engaging in intimidation and retaliation against those involved in union efforts.
“When workers are illegally intimidated and retaliated against for union activity, it creates a climate of fear, suppresses open dialogue and derails bargaining.” said Chris Rubesch, RN and President of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “Negotiation dynamics are already tilted heavily in favor of Essentia and Aspirus, but Unfair Labor Practices like these can break the scales entirely. We can’t let this continue.”
This strike vote comes on the heels of months of negotiations between hospital nurses and almost a year of negotiations for some clinic nurses. Nurses have engaged in good faith efforts to find common solutions to critical issues, such as short staffing, but have been met with Unfair Labor Practices.
Yesterday’s vote was brought together three distinct groups of workers; acute care nurses at Essentia and Aspirus St. Luke’s hospitals, clinic and hospice workers at Essentia’s Duluth facilities and Advanced Practice Providers in Essentia’s East Market. All three groups voted to authorize their negotiating teams to call an Unfair Labor Practice Strike.
The Issues
While nurses in all three groups have concerns about issues such as staffing, workplace safety and scheduling, their journeys to this point have been unique.
For all three groups, they have been met with Unfair Labor Practices as they propose common sense solutions to the issues they are concerned about.
Acute care Registered Nurses at Aspirus-St. Luke’s and Essentia have been represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association since the 1940’s and negotiate with their employers every three years, including this year. Both groups of acute care nurses cited unsafe levels of staffing for their patients as their biggest concern to address during negotiations this year, even over wages.
“In over two decades of nursing, I’ve never witnessed a crisis like this. Patients are arriving sicker than ever, but instead of increasing support, hospital leaders have gutted the frontlines.” said Larissa Hubbartt, RN at Aspirus St. Luke’s hospital and a negotiating team member. “Nurses are being pushed past the brink while care crumbles and our patient’s health is on the line. This isn’t just unsustainable—it’s dangerous.”
Acute care nurses are also fighting off aggressive rollbacks to current benefits in their contract proposed by both Essentia and Aspirus facilities.
Essentia’s clinic and hospice nurses working at multiple locations are also in negotiations for their first contract. Over the past year and a half, nurses and healthcare professionals at multiple locations voted to join the Minnesota Nurses Association including nurses at Essentia Duluth’s 1st Street, 2nd Street, and 3rd Street clinics and Essentia’s Superior clinic, nurses at the Miller Hill Ambulatory Surgical Center and healthcare workers at Solvay Hospice House. This group of healthcare professional’s share concerns around their ability to provide consistent, continuous care to their patients, as well as the need for transparent wages and processes that allow them predictability and work-life balance.
The third group, Advanced Practice Providers, voted to join MNA in August of 2024. This group is made up of Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants/Physician Associates, Certified Nurse Midwives, and Clinical Nurse Specialists in Essentia’s East Market who provide care for residents across northern and central Minnesota.
Despite being certified by the National Labor Relations Board, Essentia leadership has refused to even begin negotiations for a first contract—an action that violates federal labor law.
What’s Next
Nurses, healthcare workers and Advanced Practice Providers at Essentia Health and Aspirus-St. Luke’s are joined by their colleagues in the metro, where an additional 11 hospitals in the midst of bargaining also voted to authorize an Unfair Labor Practice Strike.
MNA nurses, APP’s and healthcare workers remain committed to bargaining in good faith. They are still seeking a solution, and believe one is possible if healthcare leadership stops committing unfair labor practices and begins to take their issues seriously. In the coming days, bargaining will continue, and nurses will meet to evaluate whether a strike is necessary.
A strike has not been called for at this point. If a strike is called, nurses will provide the legally required 10-day notice to employers and the public to ensure hospitals have time to arrange the necessary coverage.