The Minnesota Nurse’s Association has set a drop dead date to vote on a potential strike as they work through contract negotiations with hospital administrators.
They announced Thursday morning at a press conference that 15,000 nurses in the Twin Cities and in the Twin Ports area of Duluth-Superior are set to vote Monday.
The nurses from 13 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Twin Ports say executives have created a healthcare crisis of nurse retention and care in the healthcare system.
Lynetta Muehlhauser with Allina Health says they are burned out.
“We are losing nurses faster than we can train them,” Muehlhauser says. “We have nurses that could be working at the bedside for another 10, 15 years, and they're walking away because they can no longer deal with what they're dealing with.”
The Minnesota nurses association wants solutions to address short staffing and care needs, as well as rising safety concerns inside hospitals.
Twin Cities Hospital Group, which represents six of the seven area hospitals (all but Allina), says the nurses salary demands are unreasonable and that the union has rejected their offer of mediation.
They add that there are tentative agreements with the union in some hospitals for work safety and issues of diversity and equity.
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