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By Tom Scheck
June 3, 2001
Fifteen-hundred nurses at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina and at the Fairview University Riverside Campus Hospital in Minneapolis rejected the latest contract offer by the hospital and are on strike, the first strike by nurses in the Twin Cities since 1984. So far, nurses at those two Faiview Hospitals are the only nurses to walk off the job. Nurses at four Allina hospitals, three HealthEast hospitals and two Children's hospitals voted to ratify their contracts. Nurses at Methodist Hospital in St Louis Park are scheduled to vote on a tentative agreement Sunday.
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IT WAS EVIDENT on the faces of the rank-and-file nurses that they were unhappy with the contract proposal after they voted Saturday. As they walked out of the Richfield Middle School, they made comments like "find me some work" and "see you on the strike line." Nurses like Dayna Ring, a surgical nurse at Fairview Riverside, called the proposal inadequate. She was frustrated that the hospital's offered a 19.8-percent salary increase over three years and minor changes to staffing and patient scheduling.
"We need to take a stand," she said. "We need to take a stand for our patients. We are not dogs, and right now think Fairview is treating us like some kind of little dog that they can throw scraps to under the table. And I'm really angry right now."
After the vote, the nurses showed less anger and emphasized solidarity. A group of 20 nurses huddled around each other to show the news media and the Fairview Hospital administrators, who watched from across the parking lot, that they were ready to strike.
Fairvew Southdale nurse Jean Ross was one of the lead union negotiators. She says the membership was frustrated that there wasn't a larger wage increase and little done in terms of health insurance. "No move on insurance really seemed to anger them. The staffing language that we got wasn't as good as we hoped for and our nurses repeatedly said that they did not trust that the administration would do any more than they had with the language we already had."
Ross says the union will start notifying the hospital's 1,500 registered nurses that they should not go to work and prepare to walk the picket line.
Administrators for the Fairview Hospitals are disapointed to say the least. "In any strike nobody wins, eventually. And this is not easy for us and I'm assuming it's not easy for the nurses who are on strike either," said Fairview Hospital's administrator, Mark Enger, who watched as other hospitals reached settlements with their nurses.
Seven hospitals, including Fairview Riverside and Southdale hospitals, avoided an earlier strike deadline by reaching tentative agreements just hours before the 5:30 a.m. strike deadline.
Enger says the hospitals have 500 replacement nurses ready to work and doesn't expect to cut any services. "Fairview Southdale and Riverside Campus of FUMC are ready to go at full capacity. We brought in enough nurses to keep our commitment to the community for safe and adequate patient care." he said.
Union officials won't say why nurses at the two Fairview hospitals rejected a contract proposal that had a wage increase similar to those accepted by nurses at other hospitals. A union official say under those new contracts nurses will get a raise that will bring hourly rates up to $20 for new nurses and up to $34 for more experienced nurses.
Both union and Fairview officials say a call by the federal mediator will determine when the two sides will go back to the bargaining table. The nurses at Methodist Hospital will decide Sunday if they want to accept their tentative contract agreement or join the nurses at the two Fairview hospitals on the picket line.
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