Twin Cities Nurses Preparing For Strike Sunday
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Nearly 5,000 Twin Cities nurses from five hospitals are ready to go on strike Sunday.
On Saturday, the nurses gathered to make signs for the walk out. Talks Friday between the Minnesota Nurses Association and Allina Health were not about the contract dispute. Instead, they discussed how nurses will be called back to work once the week-long strike is over.
Both sides expressed a desire to continue contract negotiations.
"We tried to bring forth issues about staffing and workplace violence, and they said they won't talk about anything else until we talk about transitioning out of our affordable health care plans," nurse Barbara Slagg said.
The CEO of Allina Health says more than 14-hundred replacement nurses from different states are in Minnesota. They'll go to work when the strike begins.
The CEO says Allina has gone to great lengths to make sure patient care does not suffer during the strike.
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On Saturday evening, Allina Health released a statement about their position on the strike:
- All Allina Health hospitals will be open and caring for patients during the strike. Highly qualified, experienced replacement nurses will be working alongside our other outstanding caregivers, and the public can be assured that our level of care will not be compromised.
- Allina Health is eager to get back to the negotiating table with the union. We believe we can solve these issues through a constructive dialog.
- The union health plans are costly and unsustainable, and will be subject to a large federal tax penalty under the Affordable Care Act by 2020, which will explode the costs of these plans for both the nurses and Allina. We have tried to address this problem with the union for nearly a decade. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to solve. We need to begin the transition away from these plans now.
- The insurance plans Allina Health is offering to our nurses are good plans that already provide excellent coverage to more than 30,000 other Allina Health employees and their families, including paramedics, nursing assistants, nutrition services staff, physical therapists and physicians. They are the same plans the union has already accepted for nurses at three other Allina Health facilities. The union has consistently been communicating false and misleading information about these plans, and in doing so has done a disservice to our nurses. Our nurses deserve the facts, which are available at www.allinahealth.org/negotiations.
