About 300 nurses and other medical staff at six Duluth-area Essentia Health facilities went on strike Tuesday.
The workers, represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association, are negotiating their first union contracts and say bargaining is going too slow.
“It just feels like they're stalling, and that we were kind of left with no other option,” said Kim Volkart, a nurse at Solvay Hospice House in Duluth, where staff unionized last year.
In addition to Solvay Hospice House, workers are striking at Essentia Health’s 1st Street, 2nd Street, 3rd Street and Superior clinics, and at the Miller Hill ambulatory surgery center.
At Solvay, Volkart said staff are looking for protections and paid leave for workers who are assaulted or injured on the job, which she said has happened to her and several coworkers. She said workers at other facilities are pushing for better health care and improved staffing levels, among other protections.
“We need for our patients to have a good place to be taken care of — by people who have fair contracts and are not at odds with the employer,” Volkart said.
Essentia Health said in a statement that first union contracts typically take 18 months to negotiate; the company has been negotiating with striking workers for less than a year.
Essentia has closed Solvay Hospice House while the strike is underway and transferred patients to other care.
Hundreds of other health care workers across nearly 70 Essentia facilities intend to go on strike Thursday.
Nurses with Twin Ports hospitals reached a tentative agreement with Essentia Health last week to avert a strike; Twin Cities metro area nurses also reached tentative agreements with their employers.
