Thousands of nurses at Duluth hospitals opt to strike if no contract is reached

As many as 2,000 Duluth-area hospital nurses and other providers will go on strike in 11 days if they can’t reach agreements with their employers, Essentia Health and Aspirus St. Luke’s, on new three-year contracts.

The Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) announced the potential July 8 strike on Friday, one week after nurses at a dozen hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth area voted to give the union the authority to call a strike.

The quick-fire announcement is unorthodox. Unions sometimes wait to see if the strike vote itself prompts movement in negotiations. But MNA president Chris Rubesch said there has been little progress in bargaining this week in Duluth, where hospitals are being “incredibly aggressive” in their attempts to cut benefits and staffing agreements.

“We are tired,” said Rubesch, an Essentia inpatient nurse. “We are tired of working short-staffed. We are tired of calling management for help and being told, ‘There is nothing we can do.’”

Strikes are not yet being planned for more than 12,000 hospital nurses in the Twin Cities, where hope remains of negotiating pay, benefit and staffing levels without such last-resort measures, he said. “I hope they get serious about negotiating in good faith soon.”

The walkout includes inpatient nurses at three Essentia Health hospitals in Duluth and Superior, Wis., and at Aspirus St. Luke’s in Duluth, who are seeking new three-year contracts. The strike also includes surgery, clinic and hospice nurses, as well as advanced practice providers such as nurse practitioners, who recently joined MNA and are seeking their first contracts.

An Essentia executive called this a “wholly avoidable outcome” and put the blame on the nursing union for declining to negotiate on 46 of 54 offered dates and delaying presentation of its full contract proposal for months.

“Union leadership has leveled inaccurate and misleading allegations and repeatedly declined opportunities to make progress toward shared goals,” said Rhonda Kazik, Essentia’s chief nurse executive, in a written statement.

The strike would start at 7 a.m. July 8 and continue until the union calls it off or a contract is reached.

MNA’s last open-ended strike of Twin Cities or Duluth hospitals was in fall 2016, when Allina Health inpatient nurses protested over a switch in health benefits. Twin Cities hospital nurses also participated in a time-limited, three-day protest strike in 2022, but aren’t prepared to do so again just yet.

Negotiations are scheduled next week for hospital nurses in Duluth as well as at Children’s Minnesota, Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale, Allina’s Abbott Northwestern, United and Mercy hospitals, and M Health Fairview’s Southdale, and St. John’s hospitals, as well as the University of Minnesota Medical Center.

Nurses have been seeking fixed per-patient staffing ratios to improve patient care and hospital safety, but hospitals have refused to discuss the costly demand.

MNA set the stage on Monday when it announced results of its June 20 vote and alleged unfair labor practices by the negotiating hospitals. Strikes under such pretenses gain special federal protection, guaranteeing that workers can return to their jobs.

Rubesch said it will be difficult for nurses in Duluth to leave the bedside, but he argued that hospitals have forced the action by refusing to even consider some of the union’s proposals and demanding so many cuts. Essentia had filed its own unfair labor practice allegation with federal authorities, claiming the union declined to meet on numerous dates.

The union is required to give 10 days’ notice before a strike, allowing the hospitals to hire and train replacement nurses so they can maintain patient care. Even strike notices can be costly for hospitals, which have to commit money to hiring contracts with temp staffing agencies.

Hospital workers at Essentia Health-Deer River were on strike for 49 days this winter amid a dispute over how and when they could be dispatched to other Essentia hospitals that were shorthanded.