Essentia Health Red Book Update

CONTRACT: The Red Book contract was set to expire today.  The company and the union have agreed to extend it until a successor agreement is agreed upon.  Either party can give 30 day notice to begin negotiations at any time.

SAL: An agreement has also been made on the Special Administrative Leaves for the Red Book.  The old agreement expired today.  A new one has been agreed to that calls on any department that doesn’t have enough work to ask for volunteers for the SAL.  If there aren’t enough volunteers, the least senior folks can be mandated to go on leave.  People who volunteered for the leaves in the past will have a chance to either volunteer again, or come back to work this way.  The agreement allows for the leaves to be in effect for up to 90 days.    If you are currently on leave, you should be hearing from your management team today.

LAYOFFS: There was one Red Book layoff meeting today.  There is a possibility of one or two more layoffs, but they have been delayed, and will possibly not happen, because of some issues we have raised about them.