So members of a major Minnesota nurses union have said they favor going on
strike if negotiations don't resolve differences with management
of several health systems in the Twin Cities and Duluth.
So there are around 15,000 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association
that cast ballots on Mondays, whether to authorize a strike.
With the union announcing late Monday night that its members voted
overwhelmingly in favor.
The the vote sets up another phase in negotiations that go back to last March,
according to the union.
The disagreements appeared to be over staffing levels,
working conditions and paid family leave.
So hospital executives with million dollar salaries have created
a crisis of retention and care in our health care system.
This is coming from the president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, Mary Turner.
She said more nurses are leaving the bedside putting quality patient
care at risk, nurses do not take this decision lightly.
But we are determined to take a stand at the bargaining table and
on the sidewalk if necessary, to put patients before profits in our hospitals.
So this is a huge undertaking by the nurses.
This is not just people at work striking about their own working conditions,
about their wages, about the resources they have at work or long hours.
These are nurses saying we've gotta change the way we do things because we're not
taking care of people and that's what we want our job to be.
That's why we became nurses, not so different from what we were just talking
about in this last story about the people in Congress.
Who are workers in Congress putting pressure on their bosses to actually use
their work and their resources to do things that they agree with more.
So that they have more say about what's going on in their workplace.
But this strike vote covers nurses working at 15 hospitals
under seven hospital systems.
We've got a list of those hospitals that you can look at above.
You can see for the CEO's compensations.
These CEO's are making a ton of money.
$3.5 million, $2.69 million, $2.4 million,
into the right a pay ratio to the average registered nurse.
At the first hospital, 40 to 1,
the second 2 hospitals 38 to 1 and a Methodist 28 to 1.
So a huge pay differential.
A comparison of some of the hospitals included in
the Minnesota Nurses Association press release.
So nurses are saying that hospitals are dangerously understaffed,
leading to more patient injuries like bedsores and falls.
Turner, the president of the union,
pointed out a recent report from the Minnesota Department of Health that
shows adverse health effects were up 33% in 2021 from 2020.
Last year, nurses filed 8000 reports of unsafe staffing levels,
an increase of 300% from 2014.
Nurses filed the reports when they fear low staffing levels could lead to patient
injuries, which also jeopardized nurses licenses if they're found to be at fault.
So they're striking for very good reasons, reasons beyond their own self interest.
They care a lot about these patients.
And it sucks that it's the workers that are paid far less than the CEO's that
are taking on this burden of saving patients lives and
saving people whose care should be under the owners of the hospitals.
This is a consequence of having a profit driven healthcare system.
And thank God these nurses are standing up.
We all stand to benefit from this.
Jr, what are your thoughts?
>> It's tough man.
It's one of those occupations where it's hard to take that time to then get
the right representation at least get the right kind of working conditions
when things are unfair like this.
Cuz of course there's potential people who then pay the consequences.
Which is why it's such a big deal if they do cuz it has to happen.
Something has to move here because are we just gonna openly not care,
about some of these patients?
But the problem it already seems that's a big issue which
leads to something like this.
Where do you turn?
And also how many people would look and go,
how dare these nurses turn their backs on their patients?
I remember during COVID during 2020, believe was up in Maine,
there was a group of nurses that were looking to strike or
walk away from their patients because they were against the vaccines.
Or at least the type of masking and care that they're supposed to go and
approach this type of thing.
And I think that failed to a degree cuz they were talking about they were rallying
it, but they didn't end up doing it and people were against that move.
So to what degree?
I wonder people are going, nurses make just enough, they're fine.
Yes, that's a CEO is supposed to make $3.69 million every year while
nurses are in certain conditions and maybe don't get the fair amount there or
at least have a situation where there's enough people there.
And again it goes right back on them again as far as who's accused or who's at fault
when something does happen because of something that's outside of their control.
It's, and I know these strikes have happened, we talked about it earlier
just now when you want people to organize at work and this is the scary part.
Once you organize, you may get a voice, you're gonna hear what's happening, but
they're gonna come at you hard man.
And then we wonder someone says, I'm gonna go to the hospital and
deal with these nurses?
Now, look at they're turning on us.
No, they're trying to actually give you a better situation where you can
have some care.
But it takes multiple deep talk to talk about this which sadly a lot of these
folks in power know people don't have time to talk about.
>> Yeah.
And it's one thing to point out all of this and say,
look at what's going on, but all it takes is one trip to the hospital for
people to realize that this is going on everywhere.
This is not a problem unique to Minnesota.
And when you think about the problem of these hospitals being understaffed,
and you look at the pay ratio, okay, 42 to 1, 3.5 mil dollars for the CEO.
If the problem is that you're understaffed,
let's put the CEO out of nurse's salary or even the pay of two nurses, right?
Now, we have 38 new nurses, and we still have the CEO,
seems like a fine solution to me.
I don't know the numbers really speak for themselves, the problem solved.
Yeah, this is really an example of something that is a trend in our
country right now.
So this strike vote is a part of a trend of workers striking around the country,
from Starbucks Workers to Strippers in Los Angeles.
But it's also a trend among nurses across the country.
And Michigan, roughly 6200 Michigan Medicine nurses are determined to
carry out a struggle against the university hospital system for
safe staffing levels, higher wages, benefits, and workplace safety.
In California, 2000 Kaiser Permanente mental health therapists
are set to go on their first indefinite strike ever starting on Monday.
The contracts for tens of thousands of Kaiser nurses and
other health care workers have expired or about to.
And in Buffalo New York, the Communications Workers of America and
the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 have
called a one day informational picket at two hospitals on Tuesday.
The unions have kept 7000 nurses on their job through contract extensions and
other stalling.
So this is happening across the country and it's really important to
point out that yes workers walking off their job might inconvenience you.
You might say, well, what happens if I have an emergency and
I need to go to the hospital and the workers are striking.
But in the long run, everyone really stands to benefit.
We have data from the Department of Health and Human Services that prior to last
year, the uninsured rate had consistently remained in the double digits for decades.
The number of uninsured Americans began dropping after the ACA.
Which expanded Medicaid and offers health insurance to people who lack job
based coverage through a mix of subsidized private plans.
And this was enacted in 2010,
roughly 26 million people remain without health insurance in the United States.
That's the latest numbers from Health and Human Services.
And right now, we're still facing multiple pandemics, polio, COVID and monkey pox.
We really need strong health care systems right now.
COVID cases, the daily average right now is still around 100,000 cases.
We're still experiencing 415 deaths per day,
5837 new admissions to hospitals for
COVID, polio also is back is terrifying.
The New York City Health Department and
the New York State Department of Health have identified polio virus in sewage and
this suggests local transmission of the virus.
They test the sewage to see the prevalence of the virus in the area and
they found it, in the sewage there.
Let's also just quickly take a look at this map about monkey pox.
There are 12,689 total confirmed cases of monkeypox throughout the country,
concentrated in those darker areas on that map.
So, it's good that the nurses are striking right
now because it's looking like we're going to need to rely on our health
care system in the United States more intensely.
And it needs to be better equipped to serve the people in this country.
Jr, any last thoughts on this?
>> Yes, this is my last thought on this.
At some point, think about this wild scenario where CEO's can get paid this
much, these millions of dollars.
And the basis for their success in a company is not necessarily how much it
brings back into themselves and the shareholders,
but maybe the retention of good employees.
Maybe the happiness of employees.
That should be the gauge and it shouldn't seem like a crazy thing that, hey,
this particular CEO is the best in the country.
Look at how happy his employees are.
Look at how much they wanna stay.
Look at how much money they make cuz it should be attractive to wanna work for
someone because then if you have better workers for you,
do you think your business does better?
And at the end of it all, you then do make more money.
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