Hundreds of northeast Minnesota nurses and clinicians are ending their strikes against Essentia Health on Wednesday, confident that their two-week walkout will motivate more productive contract negotiations.
“We may not have received what we hoped for, yet, but the momentum we’ve built will carry forward,” said Neissa Boehm, a Virginia, Minn., nurse practitioner represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association.
The union coordinated both strikes, on behalf of 300 clinic nurses in the Duluth area and 400 advanced practice practitioners who work at Essentia hospitals and clinics across northeast Minnesota. Both groups are seeking their first union contracts to improve pay and benefits and give them more say over their schedules.
Essentia has “shown a willingness to engage seriously” in negotiations since the walkout, “meaning that the strike mattered,” said Kim Volkart, a nurse at Essentia’s Sovay Hospice House, which temporarily closed earlier this month.
Essentia in a written statement noted several incremental steps in contract negotiations with the nurses, including discussions with a federal mediator and the addition of more bargaining sessions in August.
“We look forward to the shared work ahead to advance our mission to make a healthy difference in people’s lives,” said Rhonda Kazik, chief nurse executive at Essentia.
The health system has not engaged in any contract talks with the advanced practice practitioners, though, as it presses a federal challenge to their unionization as a single bargaining group.
The group includes physician assistants and nurse practitioners from Hinckley to International Falls who work in inpatient and surgical roles and provide the majority of clinical and urgent care in Essentia’s northeast market.
