Duluth Clinic 3rd Street Bargaining

Updates

Essentia Health recognizes the MNA as the union representing clinic nurses at Essentia Health Duluth Clinic 3rd Street. Essentia Health is committed to working through the usual process of bargaining in good faith to come to a mutually agreeable contract. Bargaining on a new first contract began on Feb. 26, 2025.

Upcoming negotiations scheduled

  • July 9, 2025
  • July 23, 2025

June 17 Update

Bargaining update

On July 9, 2024, nurses at the 3rd Street Clinic voted to be represented by the MNA for purposes of collective bargaining. Approximately seven and a half months later, the MNA requested to meet with Essentia to bargain a first contract. Essentia agreed and the parties met for the first time on February 26, 2025.

Since then, Essentia has met with the MNA on four additional days in 2025: Apr. 8, Apr. 14, May 7 and May 27.

Over those days, we have reached 18 tentative agreements over a variety of topics:

    1. Labor Agreement
    2. Separability and Savings
    3. Breakage and Loss
    4. Voluntary Resignation
    5. Labor Management Committee
    6. Employer Committees
    7. Non-Discrimination
    8. Pandemic/Endemic/Disaster Planning and Preparation
    9. Identification
    10. Uniforms
    11. Personnel File
    12. Probationary Period
    13. Health and Safety
    14. Drug and Alcohol Testing
    15. Grievance Procedure
    16. Discipline and Discharge
    17. Union Participation
    18. Precepting and Orientation

We continue bargaining over 20-plus other topics including wages and benefits. In the meantime, we continue to maintain the status quo. With negotiations ongoing, we also offered to provide nurses at 3rd Street Clinic with annual wage increases averaging 3.5% this past April, an offer which was rejected by the MNA.

As we shared during the election campaign when nurses were considering representation by the MNA, first contracts in health care take an average of 18 months to complete from the beginning of negotiations. We are now just under four months into negotiations. We will continue negotiating with the MNA in good faith as we tackle the outstanding issues.

We had June 17 scheduled for our next session; however, the MNA requested to use that date to continue negotiations with our Twin Ports acute care nurses. We have asked the MNA to provide additional days that the MNA is available to continue negotiations.

We are grateful for our nurses’ dedication to providing high-quality care to our community.