Advance Practitioners Ask City Council for Help Against Essentia's Union Busting

 About two dozen Certified Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants turned out at the Duluth City Council meeting on Dec. 18.  Three weeks ago over 350 CNPs and PAs throughout Essentia Health's facilities in Minnesota and Wisconsin, filed to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board.  They declared their intent to join and be represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association.  Since then, Esssentia has engaged in a nasty union busting campaign.  They have sent out numerous texts and emails begging advance practitioners not to unionize, they have torn materials down from union bulletin boards, tried to intimidate other workers from wearing buttons and stickers in support of the unionizing workers, and have now filed motions to try and break up the CNPs and PAs into dozens of separate units that would all have to unionize and bargain separately.  

The turnout at the City Council meeting was to alert the public as to what Essentia is doing, and to specifically ask City Councilors to sign on to a letter of support for the union.  Essentia's new billion dollar hospital was largely built with public money.  And the City of Duluth lobbied hard at the state legislature for Essentia to get that money.  The workers argued that at the very least that should buy some sort of neutrality from Essentia, instead of them aggressively trying to prevent their Advance Practitioners from having a collective voice.

We urge our readers to support the Minnesota Nurses Association and stay tuned for ways that you can support these workers in the weeks ahead.  We also encourage you to follow the MNA website and social media directly.  GO UNION!

>> The article above was written by Adam Ritscher of the Northwoods Socialist Collective.