The last time hospital nurses in the Twin Cities and Duluth sought contracts, in 2022, they orchestrated the largest nursing strike in U.S. history. Six years before that, Allina Health nurses held the longest such strike in state history.
What will 2025 bring?
Leaders of the Minnesota Nurses Association said all options are on the table as they negotiate three-year contracts for more than 15,000 nurses at a dozen urban hospitals, because prior contracts have failed to resolve staffing and safety concerns that have worsened. A union press conference Thursday amped up public pressure on ongoing negotiations.
“We are here to care for patients, not to be human shields, and we cannot continue to do this dangerous work” without better protection, said Katelyn Warren, a nurse at Allina Health‘s United Hospital in St. Paul.
The talks include nurses at the Allina, Children’s, Fairview and North Memorial hospital systems in the Twin Cities and the Essentia Health and St. Luke’s hospitals in the Duluth area.
Warren said that in two years on the job at United, she has been assaulted multiple times. She recalled an incident when available night-shift nurses were restraining a combative patient, and none had a free hand to call security for help. She was kneed in the head and missed time from work.
Better safety training could have helped, along with panic buttons being issued to all nurses, she said. But mostly there weren’t enough nurses to handle the situation, she said.
“You cannot tell me that the significant cost of paying for workers’ comp or the major turnover (of burned-out nurses) is less expensive than additional staff,” she said.
