On November 28 the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) held a press conference announcing that they have filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold an election for the advanced practice providers at Essentia Health to join the union. Advanced practice providers is a category of workers that includes nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives and clinical nurse specialists. This organizing drives covers all of Essentia Health’s “east market” – which covers Brainerd, International Falls and Duluth MN, as well as Ashland, Hayward and Superior WI.
The organizing drive that led to this announcement unfolded over several months, and involved a lot of hard work by MNA organizers. The motivation for the workers involved is a desire to address issues in their workplace, including better compensation, work/life balance, and patient loads. Essentia Health has been dramatically increasing the workloads, while holding down pay, for all of its workers for a number of years now – and this has escalated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the building of their brand new billion dollar hospital in Duluth.
“I believe that unionizing will give us the collective voice to advocate for necessary changes in our working conditions so that we can bring our best selves to work each day, and for protection against policies that are harmful to staff and patient care. We want to provide excellent care because patients are more than just numbers to us,” said Kelly Higgins, a Physician Associate at Essentia Health in Duluth.
Congratulations to the advanced practice providers and the MNA – we wish them the best of luck and stand in solidarity with their unionizing efforts! The date for the union election has not been announced yet, but we’ll share that as soon as the NLRB announces it.