Minnesota union calls three-day walkout as 15,000 nurses press for open-ended strike

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The Minnesota Nurses Affiliation (MNA) union introduced final Thursday that it’ll name a three-day strike, beginning September 12, of 15,000 nurses throughout Minnesota. Greater than three weeks in the past nurses overwhelmingly voted for a limiteless strike. The choice to name the restricted motion got here as anger grew towards the MNA’s resolution to maintain nurses in Twin Cities on the job for greater than two months after the expiration of their contract, over a month for the remaining nurses throughout the state.

Nurses are confronting unmanageable staffing ratios, undermining affected person care and exacerbating points comparable to violence towards well being care employees. Ready rooms in some Hennepin Well being care and different hospital methods are full of a median 50 sufferers, generally overflowing into the hallways, a nurse instructed the WSWS. Like different employees, nurses are struggling a pointy fall of their residing requirements attributable to surging inflation.  

The hospital methods have proposed meager wage will increase starting from 3 to five p.c yearly, properly beneath the present inflation fee of 8.5 p.c. Allina Well being proposed an 11 p.c cumulative wage improve over 3 years, which might end in a deep minimize in actual wages. The MNA claims to be combating for a 30 p.c wage improve however that is restricted to a choose few nurses. Hennepin Healthcare nurses would obtain decrease raises primarily based on the bogus declare that the CEO in Hennepin shouldn’t be as overpaid because the CEOs of the key personal hospital methods. Whereas the 30 p.c wage demand is geared toward placating the calls for of militant nurses, it’s broadly anticipated that the union will decrease its wage calls for.

The nurses’ calls for are completely justified. The hospital monopolies obtained hundreds of thousands in federal COVID aid cash and are extremely worthwhile. Allina Well being, for instance, posted $128.8 million in working revenue for 2021, up 400 p.c from the prior 12 months. To battle for his or her simply calls for, nonetheless, rank-and-file nurses should take the initiative in their very own arms and description a technique to wage a real wrestle.

Nurses should kind rank-and-file strike committees consisting of probably the most militant and class-conscious employees. These committees should insist the strike be open ended and description calls for primarily based on what nurses and their households want, not what hospital executives and bought-and-paid-for politicians say is reasonably priced. Amongst these ought to be a direct 50 p.c wage improve, Value of Dwelling Changes (COLA), the hiring of 1000’s of recent nurses, a pointy and enforceable discount in patient-to-nurse ratios, and the abolition of exhausting work schedules.

These rank-and-file committees will name for the growth of the nurses strike into different hospital methods throughout the US and internationally. The unions, that are carefully aligned with Biden and the Democratic Social gathering, have confirmed to be the most important impediment to uniting well being care employees in a typical battle towards insupportable circumstances and the subordination of public well being to company revenue. However the unity of all well being care employees is required so sections of employees aren’t left to battle the highly effective and politically-connected hospital giants alone.

In 2016, the MNA remoted 5,000 Allina nurses by ratifying contracts in each different hospital system within the Twin Cities earlier than permitting them to go on an open-ended strike. This gave administration the inexperienced gentle to remove employer-sponsored well being care and additional assault wages and staffing ratios.

The willpower to battle in Minnesota is a part of a broader wrestle of well being care employees and the working class. Over 6,200 nurses at Michigan Medication on the College of Michigan, Ann Arbor have voted overwhelmingly to strike. However their wrestle is being blocked by the Michigan Nurses Affiliation and the College of Michigan Skilled Nurse Council. In California, Kaiser Permanente psychological well being care employees have been on strike for 3 weeks to battle for higher staffing and wages.

The depressing circumstances of nurses within the Twin Cities, and throughout the US, are the results of the legal bipartisan insurance policies, which have allowed COVID-19 to unfold with out hinderance. Each events are properly conscious of the loss of life and long-term sickness that can end result from this in addition to pressure on the well being care system. Upholding the revenue pursuits of massive enterprise, the Democratic Social gathering has used the unions to perform what the Trump administration couldn’t; the complete reopening of the financial system. 

The MNA introduced the choice to strike after months of limiting nurses to impotent appeals to hospital CEOs as a part of their “Sufferers Earlier than Income” marketing campaign. After taking beauty pay cuts in the course of the first 12 months of the pandemic, hospital CEOs pocketed giant pay will increase final 12 months. This contains: Allina CEO Penny Wheeler who acquired $2.7 million, Essentia CEO David Herman who made $2.8 million, and North Memorial CEO J. Kevin Croston who made $1.5 million.

Together with its pathetic appeals to the conscience of company CEOs, the MNA promoted numerous Democratic Social gathering politicians because the supposed “buddies of labor”, regardless that Biden and the Democrats are puppets of massive enterprise, at least Trump and the fascistic Republicans.

Illhan Omar, from the supposedly “progressive” wing of the Democrats, promoted an “informational picket” at Hennepin Healthcare in an article that appeared within the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) aligned Jacobin journal. In it, she repeats the rhetoric of the MNA paperwork, together with their dead-end appeals to the hospital bosses. “It’s time for hospital executives and CEOs to do the suitable factor, take heed to their workers, and be higher employers.”

That is totally bankrupt and defeating. The pursuits of nurses and the company executives are irreconcilably antagonistic. The hospital chains and the large buyers that stand behind them are decided to slash workforces, improve the exploitation of well being care employees, and scapegoat them when the inevitable medical errors happen, similar to the case of Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught and Vanderbilt College Medical Middle.

On this the company house owners are absolutely backed by the Democrats, which has overseen a long time of assaults on well being care employees and the suitable to well being care. Obama’s Inexpensive Care Act solely elevated the dominance of the hospital methods and insurance coverage firms over well being care by way of cost-cutting measures and elevated workloads, enforced by the Democratic Social gathering-aligned unions.

Rank-and-file nurses should oppose the sabotage of their wrestle and make the September 12 strike the start of a counter-offensive by state nurses to overturn years eroding residing requirements and dealing circumstances.

The formation of a Minnesota Nurses Rank-and-File Committee will create one of the best circumstances to unite with nurses and well being care employees throughout the nation, together with at Michigan Medication, Kaiser Permanente in California, Kaleida in Western New York and different nurses dealing with related circumstances. An industrial and political counter-offensive by well being care employees within the US and internationally will need to have as its goal the transformation of drugs right into a socialist system, the place free, high-quality well being is a primary social proper for all.