Minnesota union nurses have ratified new three-year agreements with Twin Cities and Twin Ports hospitals.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Minnesota Nurses Association President Mary Turner said it wasn't until the nurses voted to strike for three weeks this month that hospitals at the negotiating table took demands about staffing levels seriously.
"Thanks to the changes that nurses instisted on, our staffing levels will never get worse than they are now, and nurses have new protections and opportunities to advocate for safer staffing when our units are short-staffed."
Staffing changes won by nurses include language to prevent reductions in staffing levels without consensus between nurses and management; help protect nurses from discipline when they raise concerns about unsafe assignments; and to trigger reviews of staffing levels by nurses and management in response to key measures of patient and nurse wellbeing and outcomes.
"This is huge," she said. "Because we can rally around this by bringing the nurses to the leaders and lay out our plea and what we need."
In addition to the new contracts at these 15 hospitals where nurses have been negotiating since March, nurses at Essentia Moose Lake also ratified a three-year contract, their first with Essentia since the hospital chain purchased their community clinic more than two years ago. The new contract includes a retroactive pay increase of 5 percent for the last year, a new wage grid with average increases of 9 percent in the first year, and wage increases matching the Twin Ports in years two and three. The 18 MNA nurses at St. Luke’s Lake View hospital in Two Harbors, who had voted to join a planned strike, withdrew their strike notice last week as a sign of good faith while negotiations continue for a new contract. Lake View nurses have been working without a contract since September 2022.
Nurses at Hennepin County also reached a tentative agreement last week in their wage reopener negotiations, matching the wage increase won by other Twin Cities nurses for 2022. As Hennepin nurses prepare to bargain for a new three-year contract in the coming year, they remain committed to addressing issues of under-staffing, retention, and hospital safety for nurses and patients. Hennepin nurses will vote to ratify the tentative agreement on wages in the coming days.
Along with staffing language, the contracts for the 15 hospitals include historic pay raises of 18 percent over three years for nurses in the Twin Cities, and 17 percent for nurses in the Twin Ports, with pay retroactive to the previous contract’s expiration. These wage increases represent the largest won by MNA nurses in over two decades. These new contracts will help to retain nurses at the bedside at a time when over half of all nurses are considering leaving bedside nursing due to chronic understaffing and poor management by hospital executives. Along with improved wages and staffing language, several contracts include additional gains including workplace safety protections.
Nurses said they are resolved to continue the fight against the corporate healthcare practices that have understaffed our hospitals for years and that threaten to put profits before patients in our hospitals. Nurses said they are fighting against corporate healthcare mergers and monopolies that threaten choice, access, and affordability of healthcare for Minnesotans, and will continue the fight for safe staffing levels at the Minnesota Legislature next session.
“It took nine months of negotiations for our hospital executives to understand that nurses would not back down in the fight for better care and working conditions in our hospitals,” said Chris Rubesch, RN at Essentia in Duluth and First Vice President of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “These contracts are a critical step to address the chronic short-staffing and other corporate healthcare policies hurting patients and nurses at the bedside. Now, we must pass the Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act to ensure safe staffing levels to retain nurses and protect patient care in communities throughout Minnesota.”