Twin Cities hospitals, nurses reach tentative contracts; strike still possible in Duluth

Roughly 12,000 nurses at nine Twin Cities hospitals will remain at patients’ bedsides instead of picket lines under tentative agreements their union and employers reached Thursday.

Negotiators for the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) and hospitals found common ground in overnight sessions that ended early Thursday morning. The specter of federal Medicaid cuts loomed over the talks, threatening to financially weaken Minnesota hospitals and their ability to improve benefits and wages.

Those cuts left nurses with an “uphill battle” in negotiations this year, the union said in a written statement. Metro nurses will vote next week on contracts that include a 10% increase in wages across the next three years and at least incremental steps toward solidifying nurse-to-patient staffing levels.

“Staffing levels were the number one priority in these negotiations, for the first time ahead of wages, and it will continue to be a principal concern as we move forward caring for our patients in the future,” said MNA President Chris Rubesch, a nurse at Essentia Health in Duluth.

Negotiations intensified this week after the union issued notices that more than 2,000 nurses would strike starting 7 a.m. Tuesday at four Essentia Health and Aspirus-St. Luke’s hospitals in the Duluth area.

The union on Thursday halted strike plans at Aspirus after a 30-hour negotiating session brought both sides close to a deal. Strikes at three Essentia hospitals are still scheduled.

Tentative agreements were reached for nurses at Children’s Minnesota; Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park; North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale; Allina’s Abbott Northwestern, United and Mercy hospitals; M Health Fairview’s Southdale and St. John’s hospitals; and the University of Minnesota Medical Center.

Nurses at those hospitals had voted last month to authorize a strike but returned to negotiations before scheduling a walkout.

In the Twin Cities, the union didn’t gain one of its long-sought prizes for its nurses: fixed nurse-to-patient ratios. The union has argued ratios would increase supervision of increasingly complex hospital patients and improve safety amid rising workplace assaults.

Hospital negotiators had refused to discuss ratios, calling them costly and inflexible for the modern health care environment.

However, some of the agreements guarantee uninterrupted breaks for nurses and make other staffing concessions the union can build on in future talks, said Shannon Cunningham, an MNA spokeswoman. Fairview hospitals also resolved nurses’ concerns about whether their employer would use the tracking technology on new panic buttons for purposes other than safety.

Twin Cities hospitals negotiate concurrently every three years with their nurses. On one hand, that prevents them from engaging in a bidding war of escalating contracts. But on the other hand, it gives the nursing union extraordinary leverage.

A joint statement from Children’s, Fairview, Methodist and North Memorial said the tentative deal improves wages for nurses but manages costs: “Our goal with these negotiations was to provide for high-quality, affordable patient care.”

Negotiators sought compromise this week after Congress voted to cut billions of dollars from Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health benefits to more than a million Minnesotans who are disabled or living on low incomes.

Work requirements and other cuts could remove thousands of Minnesotans from Medicaid. Hospital leaders predict they will shoulder the health care costs of these patients when they become uninsured and end up in emergency rooms.

Minnesota applied this week for federal permission to create a directed-payment program by which hospitals pay special taxes to the state to maximize reimbursements from Medicaid.

State leaders initially estimated a $1 billion annual net gain under the program, including $104 million for the U medical center and $41 million for North Memorial — whose leaders warned the hospital is at risk for closure without additional support. However, Congress voted to gradually reduce the amount hospitals can collect from directed payments, negating much of the benefit.

When it became clear Congress’ budget bill was going to undercut hospital revenues, the union pivoted this week toward preserving health benefits and overtime rules and improving pay, said Rachel Anderson, an MNA leader and nurse on Southdale’s bargaining committee.

“This bill is a gamechanger for the worse,” she said.