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Info on Special Administrative Leaves for Essentia Health Green Book and Regional Clinics

Essentia Health is currently putting more workers on the COVID-19 Special Administrative Leave (SAL) from the Green Book and the Regional Clinics. The majority of those in this wave are in direct patient care positions. Here is a summary of the agreement governing these leaves.
 
Whether you volunteer, or are assigned, to the SAL, this is a temporary leave of absence for the period of April 1 – May 31, 2020. While on leave you retain your seniority. Your benefits remain intact (Health, Dental, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, Long-Term, and Short-Term Disability insurances). But note that you’re still responsible for your share of the health insurance premium, so you’ll need to reach out to HR to make arrangements for paying that.

April Monthly Meeting is Cancelled

USW Local 9460's monthly membership meeting for April is cancelled due to the pandemic.

Update for St. Luke's Workers on Quarantine Compensation

St. Luke's has agreed to expand what they are offering workers who have to be quarantined. This applies to all of our members, both at St. Luke's Hospital and the Chequamegon Clinic.  The details are outlined below in two catagories, one for workers covered by Sick Leave, and one for workers covered by PTO.

Keep Track of Mandated Time Off

Notice to Essentia Workers: As a result of this pandemic, a lot of you are being sent home on low need. If you choose to volunteer for this (VTO) that is your right, but if you are being mandated to go home (MTO) we are asking that you keep track of how many days/incidents/hours that this happens to you. Our contracts have a cap of how much MTO you can be made to use. Once you hit your cap, we ask that you notify your supervisor that you are at that cap, and that you also let us here at the union know at [email protected].

If you are being ASSIGNED low need DO NOT TAKE IT AS VTO!

Important Info From MN on COVID 19 Protections

This PDF contains info & links from the State of Minnesota relating to the COVID 19 pandemic on Unemployment Insurance, the MN Human Rights Act, OSHA, FMLA and Worker's Compensation:

PDF icon 2020_mn_protections_covid-19_healthcare.pdf

PPE Shortages

If you or your department is suffering from a shortage of PPE equipment, please let us know. We can not only pass that on to Employee-Labor Relations, but our International Union wants to know as well so as to guide our lobbying and legislative efforts. Likewise, let us know if you're having to re-use PPEs. Send reports to [email protected]

Union Update for Essentia Health Workers

Multiple media outlets announced last night that Essentia Health was placing 500 employees who are not involved in direct patient care on a special administrative leave. We have not been given a list of job titles and positions that Essentia has included into that number, but we have been informed by a few of our members that their department supervisors were placed on leave yesterday.    Ultimately, the union was extremely surprised that the company made this move last night because the union and the company are still negotiating the specific details of what a special administrative leave

Update for St. Luke's Hospital Tech and Chequamegon Clinic Workers

Yesterday afternoon the union had a meeting with the manager of St. Lukes Employee Labor Relations, John Moores to discuss the current and possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic faced by our members. SLH insists it has no plans for targeted layoffs at this time.  A number of workers have been sent home, mostly on voluntary low need (ATO), but some of our members have been mandatorily sent home (MTO). There has been no change to the FTEs or eligibility of benefits for those who are currently being assigned ATO or MTO.