BAXTER — Hundreds of nurses across northeastern Minnesota and the Brainerd lakes area could strike next week.
Essentia Health advanced practice providers, or APPs, filed a 10-day strike notice Monday, June 30, a week after giving their negotiating team permission to call a strike. The unfair labor practice strike would be open-ended and begin July 10, according to Essentia.
APPs — nurse practitioners, physician assistants, certified nurse midwives and clinical nurse specialists — voted to join the Minnesota Nurses Association last July. The multi-facility bargaining unit was certified by the National Labor Relations Board, but Essentia has requested a review of that decision.
MNA said the health care organization is violating federal labor law by refusing to begin negotiations for a first contract. Essentia said the proposed APP bargaining unit is “uniquely problematic and wrongly constituted,” and it is exercising its legal right to a review.
No one wants to strike, but this feels like the only way to get Essentia’s attention, said Erin Swanson, a nurse practitioner in Baxter who is part of the APP’s negotiating team.
“We provide care for our community, and that is very important. But it’s also important for Essentia to follow the law and come to the table and listen to us,” she told KAXE. “ ... This is a difficult decision that is not made lightly, and ultimately, it's for the betterment of our community and the care of our patients.”
Essentia leaders are arguing that the National Labor Relations Board has historically kept hospital and clinic staff in separate bargaining units, which “helps minimize risk to patient care in the event of a strike and subsequent work stoppage.”
“Essentia will not forego its legal right to see a final determination by the National Labor Relations Board,” a Monday news release for the organization stated.
The APP bargaining unit includes over 400 providers across nine hospitals and 60 clinics in Essentia’s East Market, which stretches from the Brainerd lakes area to Ashland, Wisconsin, north to International Falls and south to Pierz. It includes facilities along the Iron Range and in Grand Rapids, Deer River, Hackensack and Ely.
In that region, 44% of all patient encounters are with an APP, and 88% of all urgent care encounters are with an APP, according to Essentia.
"We’re the ones who are taking care of you and coming up with a treatment plan, along with our physician colleagues,” Swanson explained. “We work independently of our physician colleagues but share a similar role.”
The APPs are very mindful of the potential impact of a strike, she said, and that’s why it has taken them so long to reach the point of calling for one.
“We all go into health care to take care of our patients,” Swanson said. “It’s very stressful. My hope is that Essentia doesn’t let it happen.”
Two other MNA groups — hospital nurses and clinic nurses — in the Duluth area also authorized strikes last week and nurses from multiple facilities issued their 10-day strike notices Friday, June 25.
Members of the APP negotiating team joined a bargaining session between Essentia and one of the other nursing groups last week. Swanson said they didn’t want to call a strike without looking Essentia in the eye and asking them to come to the table.
She said before the APPs voted to unionize, Essentia said they would bargain in good faith. They’ve refused to have any formal meetings or recognize them at all, Swanson said.
In its release, Essentia said APPs are a vital part of caring for communities.
“A strike will not speed up the legal review process,” said Dr. Krista Skorupa, East Market president.
“At a time when rural health care is facing pronounced challenges, patients need more predictability not less. Over the next coming days, we will maintain our focus on our work to ensure care remains accessible and close to home across the communities we serve.”
She said it makes sense for the APPs to be one bargaining unit because they work in clinics and hospitals, and many work in multiple clinics.
“There is not a certain box that we would fit in,” she said.
Swanson also said the unit makes sense because the whole East Market operates under the same rules. Essentia changing those rules is, in part, what motivated the APPs to unionize.
“The No. 1 factor is we don’t have control of our working conditions,” Swanson said, explaining that includes schedule changes, being forced to see more patients in less time, having to work at multiple facilities and more.
“... The changes are not good for us. They’re not good for our patients.”
