15,000 Minnesota nurses set to strike on December 11

As many as 15,000 Minnesota nurses are set to strike on December 11 if hospital chains and the Minnesota Nurses Affiliation (MNA) Union fail to succeed in a brand new labor settlement by that point. The strike would hit 16 hospitals in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and Two Ports.

The announcement by the MNA adopted a second strike vote by nurses late final month, and over three months after the MNA ended a three-day strike, which nurses had voted unanimously to authorize.

Allina, Essentia and different hospital giants, alongside the highly effective company and political pursuits behind them, are working well being care into the bottom, and pushing nurses and different well being care staff previous the purpose of human endurance. The subordination of public well being to personal revenue has thrown your entire medical system into disaster.

The well being programs obtained tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in authorities bailouts throughout the first years of the pandemic, and are squandering enormous sums on hospital administration, and but are cynically trying guilty nurses for “weakening Minnesota hospitals financially.”

Up to now two years alone, hospital system executives have seen monumental pay raises whereas chopping employees. Essentia Well being lower 900 jobs and paid CEO David Herman almost $2.7 million in compensation, a rise of 13 % from the 12 months earlier than. M Well being Fairview CEO James Hereford pocked $3.5 million and HealthPartners CEO Andrea Walsh made $2.4 million.

The disaster within the well being care system has been exacerbated by the murderous “let-it-rip” pandemic coverage of the Biden administration. At M Well being Fairview hospitals, for instance, emergency ready rooms replenish virtually day by day with COVID-19 sufferers. Many others are seen within the foyer, spreading the virus to different sufferers in addition to different well being care staff.

As one Minnesota nurse posted on social media, “Wait time in a neighborhood Emergency room final week to get admitted to a mattress within the hospital was over 40 hours! Overflow sufferers are being placed on specialty models simply to fill the beds. Nurses who work on specialty models (Peds, obstetrics, and many others.) are consultants of their specialty … however are novices at offering care outdoors of that. Nurses are missing ancillary assist. As a result of they don’t have sufficient nursing assistants or transportation employees, the nurses must do the extra work on prime of their very own work.”

One other wrote, “If having acceptable staffing to offer the care a affected person requires and deserves will increase the fee to the affected person, then once we’re working quick do you suppose they’re giving the affected person a reduction? Nope. Cash saved goes proper into their grasping pockets, that’s why they received’t repair the staffing drawback. They find it irresistible.”

The battle in Minnesota is a part of a rising wave of well being care employee struggles within the US and internationally. Nurses and different well being care staff have been engaged in seven of the 23 main work stoppages which have occurred within the US this 12 months, with over 35,000 participating in walkouts at Stanford, Sutter Well being, Kaiser Permanente, Allina, Essentia and different hospital firms. Later this month, nurses in England, Wales and Northern Eire will stage the largest strike within the historical past of the Royal Faculty of Nursing (RCN) and 100,000 members will conduct partial strikes at 65 Nationwide Well being Service Organizations.

However the MNA forms solely known as the strike due to the intransigence of nurses who’re decided to win their calls for. The management of the MNA, which is a part of the Nationwide Nurses United (NNU), has no intention of waging a real battle. After calling a two-day strike by 21,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses in northern California final month, the NNU-affiliated California Nurses Affiliation agreed to a four-year contract, which incorporates annual wage will increase beneath the speed of inflation and does nothing to significantly tackle understaffing, overwork and burnout. Nurses are at the moment voting on the deal.

Because it did throughout the betrayed struggles in 2016 and 2019, the MNA is in search of to dissipate anger via toothless and self-defeating stunts, together with sending nurses to US Bancorp Heart in downtown Minneapolis to enchantment to US Financial institution executives to press Allina and different hospital programs to barter higher contracts with nurses.

On the identical time, the MNA has spent months electioneering for Democratic Celebration politicians, who, the union officers declare, will tackle understaffing points via the passage of the “Conserving Nurses on the Bedside Act” laws. However even when this handed, state legal guidelines for minimal staffing ranges are routinely flouted by hospital chains with none severe repercussions.

The actual angle of the Democratic Celebration and the Biden administration to the working class was demonstrated by Congress’s intervention final week to stop a strike by 110,000 railway staff and impose a White Home-brokered pro-company settlement, which nearly all of railroad staff oppose.

The strikebreaking invoice was backed by the Democratic Progressive Caucus, together with Democratic Socialists of America members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar. The latter went to the Minnesota nurses picket traces final month for some photo-ops and has been repeatedly promoted by the MNA as a buddy of nurses.

To win their battle, nurses should kind rank-and-file committees, consisting of probably the most militant and class-conscious staff, to determine traces of communication and perform democratic dialogue to organize joint motion. These committees should draw up an inventory of calls for of what staff want, not what the hospital executives and MNA bureaucrats declare is inexpensive.

These ought to embody a 25 % annual elevate and cost-of-living safety (COLA), absolutely paid well being care and pension advantages, and enforceable nurse to affected person ratios of 1:1 for the ICU, 1:2 for the IICU and 1:3 for Medsurge.

The associated fee for these enhancements have to be paid from the large earnings, authorities bailout cash and government payoffs of the hospital chains and the insurance coverage, pharmaceutical and medical tools monopolies.

There isn’t a time to lose. These committees should set up traces of communication between nurses throughout all 16 hospitals and different well being care staff and put together now to stop the MNA from pushing via a last-minute sellout deal to stop a strike. On the identical time, the rank-and-file committees should attain out to different well being care staff and broader sections of the working class, together with railway staff, dockers, UPS staff, meatpacking, auto and different manufacturing staff, to construct up the assist wanted to win their simply calls for.