Hundreds of Allina health care workers stage one-day strike
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Over 600 physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners to hold 1-day strike against Allina Health in Minneapolis-St. Paul
Doctors Council SEIU Local 10MD announced the strike earlier this week after contract talks ended with no deal. Union members voted in June of this year to authorize a strike, with 90 percent in favor. The announcement comes on the heels of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE) Local 59 filing an intent to strike, giving Minneapolis Public Schools the required 10-day notice per state law. Workers are fighting proposed cuts to pay and benefits, and chronic understaffing that threaten patient care and clinician safety. Allina’s management is also closing four Twin Cities metro clinics—moves that will further restrict community access to care and place additional strain on remaining staff and facilities. These struggles point to a larger objective: Transforming healthcare into a public utility run for public need, not private profit.
Over 600 physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners will stage a one-day strike against Allina Health in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area on Wednesday, November 5th. The Doctors Council SEIU Local 10MD announced the strike earlier this week after contract talks ended with no deal.
The healthcare providers formed the union in October 2023, with a vote of 325 for and 200 against. The union, which covers Allina Health clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin, has been without a contract ever since. Union members voted in June of this year to authorize a strike, with 90 percent in favor.
The workers are fighting proposed cuts to pay and benefits, and chronic understaffing that threaten patient care and clinician safety. Allina’s management is also closing four Twin Cities metro clinics—moves that will further restrict community access to care and place additional strain on remaining staff and facilities.
The announcement comes on the heels of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE) Local 59 filing an intent to strike, giving Minneapolis Public Schools the required 10-day notice per state law; meaning teachers could go on strike as early as November 11. The notice followed a strike authorization vote of 92 percent in favor.
These struggles in Minnesota are part of a national wave of working-class opposition. Recently, 1,400 nurses at Keck Medicine of USC (University of Southern California) facilities staged a one-day strike. They have been struggling against severe staffing shortages and the elimination of their current health insurance benefits in favor of inferior options since May. Similarly, 46,000 Kaiser Permanente workers conducted a limited five-day strike in October, where the union bureaucracy limited pickets and walked back initial wage demands.
Meanwhile, hundreds of workers were laid off at Heights University Hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey. Hudson Regional Health, which owns the facility, has been threatening to close it down altogether. These attacks on healthcare occur as hundreds of billions of dollars have been cut from Medicaid in this summer’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
What all these struggles have in common is that the employers, the trade unions and the political establishment are working in concert against workers’ interests. The trade unions have isolated the strikes and minimized their duration, limiting them to a single day, in hopes of reaching a settlement as soon as possible.
The political reality is that the official trade union apparatus long ago ceased to be a defensive instrument for workers, instead frequently aligning its methods with the interests of corporate management and the Democratic Party—limiting militancy, isolating disputes and negotiating concessions behind closed doors.
Workers must organize democratically at the hospital floor to assert their demands. This requires building rank-and-file committees (RFCs)—worker-run, accountable bodies that operate independently of the union bureaucracy.
RFCs should demand open bargaining sessions with rank-and-file observers and immediate strike pay for any sustained strike action. They must also connect with other RFCs nationally with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) to break through any isolation and turn short demonstrations into sustained struggles. This should include a call for Minneapolis teachers to create their own RFC and unite their struggles.
Concrete demands workers should rally around include: No concessions on wages or benefits; immediate hiring to meet safe staffing ratios enforceable by worker oversight; preservation of current health coverage and pensions; and the defense of public health science against political attack. Ultimately, these struggles point to a larger objective: Transforming healthcare into a public utility run for public need, not private profit.
Allina Health doctors, PAs, nurse practitioners holding one-day strike on Wednesday
Doctors Council – SEIU planned to picket at 60 Allina clinic and urgent care locations. The group of over 600 health care workers voted to form a union in October 2023. The union believes Wednesday’s strike is the largest of its kind. Allina Health said it was “disappointed that some of our clinic providers are choosing to engage in a one-day strike and stepping away from caring for their patients””We certainly recognize that our patients are going to be affected by this strike,” an Allina doctor said. “If we don’t strike, we are accepting more cuts to primary care,” he said.
Members of Doctors Council – SEIU planned to picket at 60 Allina clinic and urgent care locations in Coon Rapids, West St. Paul and Richfield, as well as its south Minneapolis headquarters.
The group of over 600 health care workers voted to form a union in October 2023, and has been bargaining for a first contract since February 2024. The union believes Wednesday’s strike is the largest of its kind.
The union said it has met with Allina nearly 50 times with the intention of reaching an agreement that “ensures their work is valued, they have safe working conditions and their voice is heard.” No deal was reached at the latest bargaining session on Tuesday, so the union confirmed its intention to strike.
“Since at least 10 years ago, but especially since COVID, our staff has been completely gutted, and since that time, our ability to stand up for what our patients need, our voices have just been completely ignored,” Elizabeth Ezell, a physician’s assistant at the West St. Paul clinic, said.
“The truth is that we are asking for benefits that are standard in many labor contracts, including contracts Allina has with other labor groups,” Dr. Cora Walsh said.
On Wednesday, Allina Health said it was “disappointed that some of our clinic providers are choosing to engage in a one-day strike and stepping away from caring for their patients.”
“With the cost of care climbing for patients and health care systems and anticipated cuts in government funding, it would be irresponsible for either party to agree to a contract that adds significant new expenses that will undermine access and increase costs to those who pay for care,” the company’s statement read. “As we continue negotiations with the union, we remain focused on our priority of delivering high-quality, accessible care to the communities we serve.”
Dr. Matt Hoffman told WCCO last month the union decided to strike for just one day to minimize the impact on their patients.
“We certainly recognize that our patients are going to be affected by this strike. However, if we don’t strike, we are accepting more cuts to primary care,” he said. “And we certainly feel that in the long run, these cuts will undoubtedly affect patients much more than any strike.”
Over the summer, union members overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike if they deemed it necessary.
Both sides say they are committed to continued talks to reach an agreement.
Allina said it has plans to minimize disruptions and will contact patients directly if there are changes to appointments.
Minnesota Nurses Association vote to authorize unfair labor practices strike
The Minnesota Nurses Association represents 15,000 nurses across 13 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth area. Nurses say hospitals have proposed policies that they disagree with, including capping sick time at 48 hours a year. The union says they’ve brought plans regarding safer staffing ratios, workplace violence prevention measures and scheduling to the bargaining table but “hospital executives have refused to listen” Nurses are also asking for more money in their current bargaining agreement, but the increase, they say, doesn’t make up for the cost of living. The Duluth-area nurses started negotiating in April, and are facing a contract expiration date of June 30.. The vote tally does not mean a strike is imminent (a 10-day notice must be provided), if the union decides it is preferable for our nurses to leave their patients at the bedside, our nurses will be fully prepared to care for patients.
The Minnesota Nurses Association, which represents 15,000 nurses across 13 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth area, says the vote gives negotiators the ability to call for a strike at any time, after providing a 10-day notice.
Nurses say hospitals have proposed policies that they disagree with, including capping sick time at 48 hours a year, implementing the ability to cancel shifts at any time, cutting overtime pay and replacing a longstanding affordable health care plan with a high-cost option.
However the sticking point, nurses say, is that hospitals have engaged in unfair labor practices by refusing to bargain in good faith, witholding information and attempting to undermine union rights.
“We don’t take this step lightly. Nurses care deeply about our patients and our work. But when leadership violates the law, refuses to engage, and puts both patients and workers at risk, we have a duty to act. The vote is message. We are serious, we are united, and we will take action if needed,” said Sydney Patterson, a nurse at Fairview Riverside.
The union says they’ve brought plans regarding safer staffing ratios, workplace violence prevention measures and scheduling to the bargaining table but “hospital executives have refused to listen.” Nurses say the patient-to-nurse ratio is unsafe and unmanageable; in some instances, especially on overnight shifts, they say one nurse is overseeing six or more patients.
Nurses are also asking for more money in their current bargaining agreement, but the increase, they say, doesn’t make up for the cost of living.
“That’s not money for my back pocket, it’s for the patients, right? It’s human beings taking care of other human beings. We can’t do this with AI, we can’t do this with robots,” said Ericka Helling, an ICU nurse at M Health Fairview Southdale.
The MNA alleges the hospitals have retaliated by surveilling union conversations and refusing to provide information that is necessary to bargain.
Negotiations started in March for the Twin Cities nurses, who are now working without a contract. The Duluth-area nurses started negotiating in April, and are facing a contract expiration date of June 30.
“Today’s announcement of a strike vote puts the union’s ‘strike first, patients second’ mentality on full display,” said the Twin Cities Hospitals Group, which represents several hospital systems across Minnesota during the contract negotiations.
“It is disappointing that the union has chosen this path instead of working collaboratively to find solutions. While today’s vote tally does not mean a strike is imminent (a 10-day notice must be provided), if the union decides it is preferable for our nurses to leave their patients at the bedside, our hospitals will be fully prepared to care for patients. As they must be, our teams are focused on concluding these negotiations, reaching a fair settlement, and serving our patients,” their statement goes on to say.
The hospitals participating in contract negotiations include Children’s Minnesota, Fairview Health Services, HealthPartners Methodist and Allina in the Twin Cities. In Duluth, Aspirus St. Luke’s Hospital and Essentia are participating in contract talks.
In December 2022, MNA reached a tentative agreement to avert a planned strike, calling the contract a “historic win” for nurses and patients. That contract included language to address staffing shortages.
However nurses are accusing the hospitals of ignoring the language in the 2022 agreement, which stated that a staffing ratio could not be lessened without approval from both the hospital and the nurses.
“We didn’t agree and they did it anyway,” Helling said on Monday.
She added that nurses have been part of an arbitration process to resolve issue for the last 18 months.
46,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers begin 5-day strike
46,000 Kaiser Permanente workers are planning a five-day strike Tuesday. They are angry about understaffing, unsafe patient-to-staff ratios, crushing workloads and wages that have fallen far behind inflation. The union apparatus has functioned as a junior arm of management, suppressing strikes, policing dissent, and enforcing sellout contracts. The struggle by Kaiser workers unfolds amid a rapid escalation of the class struggle and the breakdown of democratic forms of rule in the United States. President Donald Trump is openly preparing to invoke dictatorial powers under the Insurrection Act. The deliberate aim of the administration is to lower life expectancy even further by redirecting money towards Wall Street and the military. The state faces a projected deficit of 60,000 nurses within a decade. They have been driven out of the field by overwork and poverty. Hospitals have deliberately deliberately closed units, closed facilities and increased patient loads to the breaking point. It’s time for a new era of health care reform, not a new age of austerity.
Tens of thousands of nurses, pharmacists, physician assistants, therapists, and other healthcare professionals across the western United States are preparing to launch a five-day strike Tuesday against Kaiser Permanente. The walkout by 46,000 workers organized in the Alliance of Health Care Unions (AHCU) expresses the explosive anger of healthcare workers confronting intolerable conditions amid soaring corporate profits and social inequality.
Irvine Kaiser Permanente mental health workers on strike, November 20, 2024
The strike encompasses a wide range of essential personnel: registered nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives, anesthetists, pharmacists, rehabilitation and respiratory therapists, speech-language pathologists, dietitians, acupuncturists, surgical and laboratory technicians, and dozens of other specialists indispensable to modern hospital operations.
Their grievances are the same as healthcare workers across the US and the world, including chronic understaffing, unsafe patient-to-staff ratios, crushing workloads and wages that have fallen far behind inflation.
The very professionals hailed as “heroes” during the pandemic now confront layoffs, pay suppression, and burnout in a collapsing healthcare system.
Kaiser Permanente, a multibillion-dollar “nonprofit” giant, is responding with threats and intimidation. In mid-September, it laid off more than 200 workers across California, citing a need to “rebalance resources.” The cuts affected administrative, IT, and food services across 15 hospitals and clinics from Oakland to San Diego.
But the main obstacle to a real fight against Kaiser is not management alone but the union bureaucracy that collaborates with it. The AHCU, including the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), has long enforced corporate dictates through joint programs such as the so-called “Labor Management Partnership” (LMP), created in 1997 to institutionalize cost-cutting under the guise of “cooperation.”
Facing mounting anger from the rank and file, the union bureaucracy sent a letter last week to Kaiser CEO Greg Adams declaring it was “pausing participation” in certain LMP activities. At the same time, it boasted that “after 28 years, the evidence is clear: Partnership has strengthened Kaiser’s performance in quality, affordability, safety, and patient satisfaction.”
This is an open admission of complicity. The “performance” strengthened was not that of workers or patients, but of exploitation and profit extraction. For decades, the union apparatus has functioned as a junior arm of management, suppressing strikes, policing dissent, and enforcing sellout contracts.
The clearest example came in 2021, when the AHCU abruptly canceled a planned walkout to ram through a rotten deal containing meaningless “staffing ratio” language and inadequate raises. That betrayal, justified as a step toward “labor peace,” only deepened the crisis now confronting 46,000 Kaiser workers.
The struggle by Kaiser workers unfolds amid a rapid escalation of the class struggle and the breakdown of democratic forms of rule in the United States. President Donald Trump is openly preparing to invoke dictatorial powers under the Insurrection Act. Under the guise of restoring “order” and defending “national security,” such measures are directed above all against the working class.
The shutdown of the federal government is already disrupting essential healthcare services, with Medicare and Medicaid telehealth appointments suspended. These interruptions, under conditions of mass poverty and aging, threaten the most vulnerable layers of the population. According to one study, Americans over 60 with low incomes die on average nine years earlier than their wealthier counterparts, a staggering expression of class inequality in life expectancy.
Trump’s fascistic government has launched a frontal assault on nutrition programs such as WIC, while his accomplice Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promotes anti-vax quackery. The deliberate aim of the administration is to lower life expectancy even further by redirecting money they deem “wasted” on the sick and elderly towards Wall Street and the military.
California’s deepening nursing shortage underscores the irrationality of the for-profit healthcare system (Kaiser Permanente, officially a non-profit, reported a “net income” of 12.9 billion). The state faces a projected deficit of 60,000 nurses within a decade. They have been driven out of the field by overwork and poverty wages. Hospitals have deliberately understaffed units, closed facilities, and increased patient loads to the breaking point..
These conditions are the product of decades of bipartisan policy: the defunding of public health, privatization of hospitals, and funneling of pandemic relief into corporate hands. During COVID-19, Kaiser and other health giants received billions in government subsidies while workers labored without adequate protective gear, contracted the virus by the tens of thousands, and saw no improvement in wages or staffing.
Now, as inflation erodes living standards, these same corporations are demanding further “cost containment.” Both the Biden and Trump administrations have overseen the dismantling of pandemic-era safety nets, while the unions have ensured that no national mobilization of healthcare workers takes place.
The crisis at Kaiser parallels mounting opposition in the working class as a whole. But the bureaucracy is working might and main to prevent these struggles from expanding and developing into a broader fight against fascism and inequality. As the Kaiser strike begins, 3,200 Boeing defense workers have been on strike for more than 2 months at major plants in the heart of the defense industry. Teachers in cities across the state of California are working on expired contracts and pressing for strike action in the face of sabotage by the California Teachers Association, hypocritically keeping them on the job under a campaign they have named “We Can’t Wait.”
Pharmacy and grocery workers represented by the UFCW are also preparing strike action, but the union is seeking to limit it to a toothless “unfair labor practice.” Over the summer, the UFCW isolated and rammed through contracts for tens of thousands of grocery store workers across America who were pressing for strikes against poverty wages.
Kaiser workers must draw the lessons of these experiences. The fight for safe staffing, decent pay, science-based public health policies, and humane conditions cannot be waged through the corrupt AHCU, UNAC/UHCP, or UFCW apparatuses. It requires independent, rank-and-file organizations controlled by workers themselves. To win, Kaiser workers must take control of their struggle out of the hands of the union officials and into their own—through democratically elected rank-and-file committees in every hospital and clinic that unite all healthcare workers on the basis of their shared class interests.
The Kaiser Workers Rank-and-File Committee, which opposed the 2021 betrayal, must be the example for how to organize to coordinate action across the entire healthcare network. Such committees can link up with autoworkers, teachers, logistics workers, and others confronting the same corporate assault.
The fight at Kaiser is not just about one contract but about the future of healthcare and the defense of the most basic social rights against fascism. The right to high-quality, free medical care for all is incompatible with private profit.
The right to a secure job and decent living standards is incompatible with the domination of Wall Street. To defend these rights, workers must build rank-and-file committees, unite their struggles across industries and borders, and prepare a political fight against both corporate parties and their union accomplices. The power to transform society lies not in appeals to management or the Democrats, but in the collective strength and consciousness of the working class itself.
Fill out the form below for information on forming a rank-and-file committee.
Strike by 950 nurses in Madison, Wisconsin over workplace safety and wages
950 nurses at Madison’s UnityPoint Health-Meriter Hospital launched a five-day strike on Tuesday. They are demanding improvements in workplace safety for both staff and patients, higher staffing ratios and increased pay. Act 10, passed over a decade ago through tactics of questionable legality under former Governor Scott Walker, stripped collective bargaining rights from nurses at UW Health in Madison. Democratic politicians are using the Meriter strike to create the appearance of supporting workers, while supporting ruling class policies against them. The SEIU just blocked a strike of nursing home caregivers in Connecticut last Friday, rather than link up that strike with the nurses in Wisconsin. The fact that SEIU Wisconsin is not willing to wage a protracted struggle on behalf of workers shows that it could declare victory on any changes at all, no matter how insignificant. The strike also takes place amid numerous struggles of healthcare workers nationally, including at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, and at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. It comes as the Democratic Party is fully complicit in the ruling class attack on workers.
On Tuesday, 950 nurses employed by UnityPoint Health-Meriter Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, launched a five-day strike, the first by nurses at the hospital. They are demanding improvements in workplace safety for both staff and patients, higher staffing ratios and increased pay.
Striking nurse Audrey Willems Van Dijk, speaking at a press conference launching the strike, said, “We have been stretched a little bit more thin, we have worked a little bit harder, we are constantly staying extra to help our coworkers and our patients, and it feels like management is taking advantage of our love of our job.”
The striking nurses are members of the Wisconsin chapter of Service Employees International Union or SEIU Wisconsin, whose membership comprises approximately 7,000 healthcare and service industry workers in the state.
The fact that the Meriter strike is occurring in Madison is significant. Act 10, passed over a decade ago through tactics of questionable legality under former Governor Scott Walker, stripped collective bargaining rights from nurses at UW Health in Madison. That law sparked mass working class protests at the state Capitol building, and broad support for a statewide general strike against the bill.
These nurses currently have a case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court to force the health system to recognize their union. In addition, SEIU Wisconsin is a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Act 10. Last year, a judge ruled parts of the law unconstitutional, although an appeal is still pending.
The strike also takes place amid numerous struggles of healthcare workers nationally.
Eight hundred workers at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, have been on strike since May 15th. The SEIU announced Wednesday that it was returning to the bargaining table. New York-Presbyterian Hospital also has announced plans to lay off 1,000 workers earlier this month.
Hundreds of nurses from two southern California hospitals, MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center and Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital, and at Alhambra Hospital Medical Center, went on strike for one day last week.
However, the union bureaucracy is doing everything it can to limit and isolate them. The SEIU just blocked a strike of nursing home caregivers in Connecticut last Friday, rather than link up that strike with the nurses in Wisconsin. Hundreds of nursing home workers in the Buffalo metropolitan area of western New York went on strike May 20 but the SEIU limited that walkout to seven days.
The current contract expired on March 16, but closed-door talks between SEIU Wisconsin and hospital management have been ongoing since January. Nurses said that they chose to strike now because management has not answered their demands for increased workplace security and higher staffing ratios. The nurses are insisting on the installation of metal detectors and workplace improvements. The union and hospital management were set to resume talks Thursday while the strike is ongoing.
In response to nurses’ demands for minimum staffing ratios, hospital management rolled out the typical objection, saying that writing specific staffing ratios in a contract would “…limit flexibility, reduce nurse autonomy and lead to unintended outcomes—potentially affecting the ability to adjust to patient needs and staff availability in real time.”
Of course, staffing ratios would do no such thing. It is always possible to bring on additional nurses to meet demand over and above minimum safe staffing levels. This is evidenced by the fact that Meriter is currently using traveling nurses as scabs during the strike, having onboarded them over Memorial Day weekend.
The fact that SEIU Wisconsin called a mere five-day strike shows the union bureaucracy is not willing to wage a protracted struggle on behalf of workers. Nor has SEIU Wisconsin published on its website the specific wage increases and staffing ratios, if any, that it is seeking. It could therefore declare victory on any changes at all, no matter how insignificant.
Democratic politicians are using the Meriter strike to create the appearance of supporting workers, while supporting ruling class policies against them. Mark Pocan, whose 2nd Congressional District of Wisconsin includes Madison, made an appearance on the picket lines on the second day of the strike. Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted in support of the nurses.
These two politicians have a long track record of directing working class resistance back into the dead end of the Democratic Party, which is fully complicit in the ruling class attack on workers. Pocan, a member and “chair emeritus” of the House “progressive” caucus, has been a reliable vote for increasing militarism and war. He voted for the $61 billion military aid package to Ukraine, an $8 billion military aid package to Taiwan, and a resolution committing the United States to “unwavering support” for Israel.
Sanders has been resolute in supporting Israel and repeating the lie that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”
The Democratic Party has enabled the unprecedented assault on science and public health by President Trump and his Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They have sought to restrict opposition to toothless letter-writing campaigns and stunts from the floor of Congress, because they are far more terrified of mass action on the part of workers, healthcare or otherwise, to oppose the assault.
These attacks are generating enormous and explosive anger among healthcare workers in particular and the working class more broadly. The scorched earth policies being implemented at HHS—such as the elimination of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and the wholesale undermining of vaccines, including recent rollbacks of COVID-19 vaccine recommendations—will make the situation facing nurses immeasurably more dire, with more and sicker patients.
Objectively, both Meriter and UW Health nurses confront a fight not just against a single intransigent health system administration, or a single state’s suppression of collective bargaining rights, but a political struggle against a ruling class which is seeking to establish a dictatorship, destroy public health and further enrich itself, no matter the cost in lives.
This struggle cannot be won through corrupt union bureaucracies, support for politicians of either party, or legal challenges. Meriter and UW Health nurses must take direct control of their struggles by forming rank-and-file committees that are democratically elected.
These committees must then deliberate free from external influences including management pressure and the sabotage of politicians and the union bureaucracy. The committee can then adopt clear demands, including specific percentage wage increases, staffing ratios and security measures. In the case of Meriter, the committee should also demand extension of the strike on an open-ended basis.
These rank-and-file committees must then unite with other such committees across the country and in other industries through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees to effect coordinated action. Only in this manner can the struggle against the ruling class and its full-scale assault on science and health be won.
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/video/hundreds-of-allina-health-care-workers-stage-one-day-strike/