Nurses, hospital staff and supporters gathered outside of Children’s Minnesota-St. Paul and United hospitals Tuesday as part of the second day of a three-day nurses strike pressing for higher wages, resolving understaffing and more.
An estimated 15,000 nurses from seven healthcare systems in the Twin Cities and Duluth areas walked out Monday, a number the union says makes it the largest strike ever by private-sector nurses in the U.S.
“We want to work; we don’t want to be out here,” Amy McGlone said. “We want to be inside, but if we don’t do this, nothing will change.”
McGlone, a 24-year nurse and current neonatal intensive care unit nurse at Children’s Minnesota-St. Paul, said Children’s Minnesota-St. Paul has lost 500 or more nurses since the start of the pandemic–a significant number when the hospital normally staffs around 1,500 nurses total.
This has led to understaffing, being overworked and being overloaded with patients.
“We have tirelessly tried to manage, and it’s just not possible,” McGlone said. “The assignments are ridiculous; you can’t give good care when you’re way overloaded with patients.”
One way the nurses have sought to combat understaffing is by increasing wages. Nurses are seeking more than 30% increases, but hospitals have offered only 10-12%. Hospital leaders called their wage demands unaffordable, noting that multiple local hospitals have posted operating losses and that the cost of wage increases would be passed along to patients.
“The union rejected all requests for mediation and held fast to wage demands that were unrealistic, unreasonable and unaffordable,” several of the Twin Cities hospitals under strike said in a joint statement.
The strike came after nearly six months of contract deliberation with hospital leaders proved futile. Nurses’ contracts run on a three-year basis, with negotiations starting for the new contracts last April, meaning the nurses at Children’s Minnesota-St. Paul have been working without a set contract for months.
Judy Goebel, a nurse on the negotiating team for Children’s Minnesota-St. Paul, said negotiations broke down on Saturday so another date was set with their employer on Tuesday, but the employers canceled.
“We are ready to get back and talk, but they have not provided us a date yet,” Goebel said.
The top priority for the nurses is safe staffing and an increase in staff retention. According to McGlone, the money is merely a way to attract and maintain more staff.
“The biggest thing we’re after is to increase our staff, have ways to retain our staff and entice people to come here,” McGlone said. “Money is not even really our top issue.”
The high turnover of nurses has led to a lack of time off for those who are injured or sick.
“We’ve had a lot of nurses injured on the job from patients,” McGlone said. “Nurses get injured and should be able to go home and have some time off to heal from their injuries acquired at work, which is not happening.”
After Wednesday, the final day of the three-day strike, the nurses “will be ready to go back to work,” according to McGlone.
“We’re ready to talk, do good work, and get back into the hospitals and take care of our patients,” Goebel said.
Cam Kauffman can be reached at kauf8536@stthomas.edu.