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Green Book Update - June 22

Thank you to everyone who wore stickers in support of the union negotiating committee! Today, Essentia responded to the union's economic proposals. They proposed a 1.75% raise for year, a .75% raise for year two and a .75% raise for year three. I'm sure you all would agree with us that that is NOT a fair raise for all of the hard work and sacrifices that we've all put in over the past couple of years. We'll be back at negotiations this Thursday. Stay tuned.

Red Book Negotiations

We had another day of negotiations with Essentia Health today.  We continue to debate over a number of issues.  One example is call pay.  The union is pushing to get Essentia to at least be competitive with other local employers, like St. Luke’s (who pays $7.80/hr for call), but the employer disagrees.  Another example regards vacation.  We want the company to commit to responding timely to time off requests, as workers shouldn’t have to wait until the schedule is posted to find out if their time off they requested six months ago has been approved or not!  And then there is wages.  The company has barely moved from their previous proposal.  Essentia seems to believe that all of our hard work and sacrifices are only worth a raise of 1.5% for 2020, ½% for 2021 and ½% for 2022.  What does everybody?  Are you fed up?  If so, see you next Saturday on June 26!

New Contract Ratified at Pine Medical Center

The tentative agreement between the union and Essentia Health Pine Medical Center was approved on Friday by the membership. Thank you to everyone who came out and voted, and congrats on your new contract!  The retro pay will go all the way back to October, and it should appear on your checkes sometime within the next three pay periods.

PMC Tentative Agreement Vote

Pine Medical Center Update: The union negotiating committee and Essentia have reached a tentative agreement on the PMC contract. A copy of the tenative agreement has been mailed out to all of our PMC members. We are going to be meeting to discuss and vote on it this Friday (June 11).

Green Book Negotiations Postponed

Green Book Update: The union and Essentia were slotted to hold a Green Book negotiations meeting tomorrow, but the company has cancelled it, claiming that they need more time to review the economic proposals that we presented to them at the end of the last session.

Regional Contract Update

Negotiations for the Year 3 wage re-opener for our Essentia Health Regional contracts (Ashland, Hayward, Spooner, Hibbing and Ely) have wrapped up. We were able to get a 2.2% raise for year 3 of the contract, which will go into effect starting July 1.  Thank you to everyone on the Negotiating Committee for their hard work!

Green Book Negotiations Update #4

Green Book Update: Negotiations resumed for the Green Book today. Unfortunately, the company continues to push for removing portions of our detailed benefit language and replacing it with non-contract policies. This isn't something we are interested in accepting. To move things along, both parties agreed to move all "open" non-economic proposals to economics. We presented our economics proposals this afternoon and the company expects to have a full response for us at the next session on June 9. Given how slow the progress has been, we are asking for you, the members, so show your support for the Negotiating Committee by wearing a union sticker on June 9 - the next day we meet with the company.

Protect the Caregivers

The patient intended to commit suicide and knew the worker making his bed at Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, Minn., stood in the way.

So he crept up behind the caregiver, grabbed the cord to the call bell and began choking her with it.

Only chance saved her, recalled Tuan Vu, a longtime hospital worker who was on duty in another part of the facility that day, noting the woman’s colleagues rushed to the rescue after the struggle inadvertently activated the call bell.