DULUTH, MN – More than 900 nurses in Duluth, Minn., are being encouraged by union leaders to authorize a one-day strike at SMDC Medical Center over the issue of adequate staffing.
The nurses, represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association, have not been able to reach a contract agreement with SMDC and have no more negotiating sessions scheduled with management. The nurses will vote Aug. 18 to ratify their current contract offer or authorize a one-day strike.
"The bottom line is the executives at the bargaining table have made it clear to us that management does not trust its nurses with the well-being and safety of our patients," said Steve Strand, an RN at SMDC. “We are not asking for anything costly, outrageous or unusual."
Union leaders say the Duluth nurses want “the same contractual rights” that nurses in the Twin Cities have. The demands include being allowed to temporarily close a hospital unit when it is no longer safe to admit additional patients and being able to refuse additional patient assignments when a nurse’s patient load has reached an unsafe level.
SMDC’s president Tom Patnoe, MD, has said the hospital will not make any additional modifications to the contract proposal.
"We feel we have bargained in good faith,” he said. “We feel we have proposed a very good offer. My hope is our nurses will inform themselves. They are valuable members of our care team and my hope is we can avert a strike.”
SMDC is a 154-bed acute care facility in Duluth, Minn. It is part of the SMDC Health System.
Strand said a critical nursing shortage already exists at SMDC, resulting in hundreds of open and unfilled RN shifts each month. He said the facility’s nurses need some kind of protection in their contract when it comes to caring and advocating for patients.
"Business executives at SMDC are refusing to allow nurses to do our duty – as dictated by the Minnesota Board of Nursing and our profession itself – of advocating for our patients," he said. "What Duluth nurses are asking for is reasonable, and in our negotiations we attempted to bargain in good faith to implement some concessions that would allow the cost to be minimized for the changes necessary."
