MNA Bargaining - Twin Ports

June 4 Updates

MNA informational picketing June 4 on Duluth campus

The Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) plans to conduct informational picketing outside Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center from 2-6 p.m. on Wednesday, June 4. St. Mary’s will be open as usual, continuing to deliver the same seamless, high-quality care that patients have come to expect here. This kind of activity is not unusual during bargaining. Members of a labor union have a right to conduct informational picketing, and we respect that right. Wednesday’s picketing is part of MNA’s statewide campaign and not just focused on Essentia.

Negotiation talks to reach a new agreement began in April, and bargaining continues. We are striving to reach an agreement that supports high-quality, compassionate care for our patients and benefits our talented nurses.

Today is one of 54 bargaining dates offered by Essentia, and one of 46 the MNA declined

In early February, Essentia offered 54 potential bargaining dates to the MNA, nearly five months before the contract for acute care nurses in the Twin Ports expires. One of those dates was June 4, which the union declined. Instead of accepting Essentia’s offer to meet at the bargaining table today, the MNA is more interested in organizing informational pickets across the state and holding press conferences than in reaching a deal before the current agreement’s expiration on June 30. Of the 54 days offered by Essentia, the union declined 46 and agreed to just eight, even though the last contract in 2022 required 26 sessions to secure an agreement. Read the rest of the story here.

Keeping our Twin Ports acute care nurses informed

We also shared an update today with our Twin Ports acute care nurses to keep them informed about what we’re discussing during negotiations, such as staffing. The attached fact sheet provides information about our how our data-driven, patient-focused staffing process works. Our processes are based on our values of teamwork, stewardship, hospitality and respect. We are listening to our nurses’ feedback on this important topic. Because of opportunities they’ve raised, we're working through additional ways to enhance our support staff resources and potential updates in API Time and Attendance. View the staffing fact sheet here.

We appreciate our shared focus on being responsive to our patients’ needs and thank our nurses for the exceptional care they provide in our Twin Ports communities.

 

May 28 Update

Addressing rumors with staff

This week we shared a fact sheet to address some of the concerns reported to us regarding negotiations. Specifically, it addresses the following rumors: 

RUMOR: Essentia is delaying negotiations. 

FACT: Since negotiations began on April 11, Essentia has addressed all MNA proposals. Yet even after seven bargaining sessions, the MNA hasn't fully responded to Essentia’s initial proposal or provided its economic proposal. 

Essentia offered 54 bargaining dates, with MNA agreeing to only nine. The last contract required 26 days of negotiations. We urge the MNA to make meaningful progress at the bargaining table before the contract expires June 30.

RUMOR: An MNA-strike would derail Essentia’s journey toward ANCC Magnet designation at Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth.

FACT: Magnet designation is about our incredible nurses and reflects their voices and their impact on patient care delivery. The Magnet journey benefits all our nurses, colleagues and patients. Regardless of whether the MNA decides to strike, Essentia remains fully committed to achieving Magnet designation. A strike would not delay our journey, and we would keep our Magnet processes on track.

 

May 23 Update 

Update on seventh negotiation session

Our seventh bargaining session with the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) for a new contract was held on Thursday, May 22.  

Despite repeated requests from Essentia’s bargaining team, the MNA still has not provided an economic proposal. The MNA has also failed to fully respond to our initial proposal which we provided on the first day of negotiations in April.  

The MNA did offer to add another day of bargaining on either June 24 or June 25. After Essentia indicated it was available to bargain both days, the MNA agreed to just a single day, which will be June 25. 

Essentia’s bargaining team followed up in writing and indicated we are still available for the other dates previously offered to meet in May and June – an additional 20 opportunities – which were among the 54 dates originally offered to the MNA in February. Essentia also offered June 30 as an additional date. 

Recognizing the need to forge more progress at the table, Essentia also offered to meet on weekends or evenings if more convenient to the MNA. 

Given the MNA’s inability to meet more consistently and continued scheduling challenges, Essentia suggested both parties agree to a contract extension until they reach an agreement. Essentia will send the MNA a formal proposal to that effect. 

With the additional agreed upon date, there are now two remaining bargaining sessions – June 12 and now, June 24 – before the contract expires on June 30.  
 
May 22 session recap:  

The parties met four times throughout the day: once in the morning, twice in the mid-afternoon, and once in the late-afternoon/early-evening. Here is a recap of those sessions: 

Morning session: 

• The MNA invited three nurses from other Essentia units to share their experience with Labor Management Committee (LMC) language at their facilities. 
  • Two nurses from Virginia shared their positive experiences with their contract’s LMC language, but opining that more sophisticated language for larger facilities like Duluth/Superior could possibly be beneficial. 
• MNA committee members raised concerns about Essentia’s updates over the limited days the MNA has agreed to meet, the MNA’s failure to provide its economic proposal and the MNA’s failure to fully respond to Essentia’s initial proposal by raising scheduling conflicts, asserting the MNA is waiting for responses to Requests for Information (RFIs) from Essentia, and that we have not agreed to include Patient Flow Coordinators (PFCs) in the negotiations. They then shared concerns over Essentia’s proposals on LMC and the ADO process. 
• Essentia heard their concerns and provided factual responses, emphasizing the following:
• Essentia has repeatedly offered to meet for more and successive days.
  • Responses to all RFIs have been provided.
  • The MNA requested to negotiate a new contract and yet still has not provided a full proposal.
  • Essentia has agreed to negotiate PFCs, though believes that negotiating the main contract now and the PCFs separately is a more efficient use of time. 
  • Essentia stressed the importance of spending the limited remaining time focusing on shared goals and common interests.   

Afternoon sessions: 

• The MNA made two proposals: a counter proposal on LMC and a package proposal for both sides to drop 13 proposals.
• Essentia agreed to review these proposals. 

Last session: 

• Essentia shared a counter proposal on LMC language, which led to productive discussions about the purpose and topics for LMC. Each side agreed to provide a list of topics it believes should be subject to discussion during LMC as a way to move those discussions along. 
• Essentia offered counter proposals on Sick Leave and Scheduling, addressing the MNA's earlier concerns. 
• Essentia committed to responding to the proposal to drop 13 proposals on June 12. 

The day concluded with discussions about the possibility of agreeing to a contract extension. 

Both parties agreed to meet again during the next scheduled bargaining date: June 12. 

May 15 Update

Update on sixth negotiation session

Our sixth bargaining session with the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) for a new contract was held on Wednesday, May 14. Essentia offered 54 potential meeting days from April to June, suggesting consecutive days of bargaining to finish negotiations before the June 30 deadline. This was based on our last contract negotiations in 2022, which required 26 sessions to reach an agreement. However, the MNA only agreed to eight days and declined consecutive meetings. 

We are now 75 percent of the way through our agreed upon bargaining sessions. With only two scheduled meeting days remaining before the contract expires, the MNA has still not addressed basic elements of our initial proposal or provided an economic proposal. 

Here is a recap of the latest session:

• MNA Economic Proposal Delay: Despite repeated reminders from Essentia, the MNA still has not provided an economic proposal. Although Essentia shared its initial proposal on the first day, the MNA has not fully responded to that proposal.
• Highlighting Essentia’s Patient-Focused Staffing Practices: Essentia did an extensive presentation on how staffing is set at Essentia, the benefits of our staffing playbook, and how we know the staffing process is working. It also covered growth we are seeing in nurse engagement, recruitment and retention. Essentia gave a copy of this presentation to the MNA. (A high-level recap of the presentation is below this update.)
• Addressing Scheduling Concerns: Following the presentation, the MNA had three nurses share stories of individual experiences that highlighted scheduling issues rather than problems with the staffing playbook. Essentia's proposals aim to address these issues, including through proposals on mandatory time off and on-call, cross facility floating and float pool language. The MNA suggested improvements to the API Time and Attendance system to help nurses manage shifts more easily. Essentia absorbed these suggestions and will explore potential improvements.
• Additional Updates: Essentia clarified a proposal on longevity bonuses, explaining that current nurses would be unaffected by any changes, and shared three tentative agreements. The MNA provided a counterproposal on sick leave. 

Both parties agreed to meet again during the next scheduled bargaining date: May 22. 

Presentation Recap: Essentia Health’s Approach to Nurse (Staffing) Playbook, Recruitment and Retention 

On May 14, Essentia nurse leaders from Duluth and Superior, along with human resources, provided a detailed presentation to the MNA about Essentia’s current patient-centered approach to staffing. We highlighted that:

• Essentia’s goal is to deliver the highest quality, patient-centered care.
• Essentia’s Twin Ports hospitals are aligned with the best nurse-to-patient staffing targets. They are comparable to national standards and ones mandated by law in other states.
• Our current staffing schedule is built off these targets and adjusted based on what we see each shift in our hospitals. Our process allows us to be flexible and quickly respond to our patients’ needs, which is vital. 
• Our process also ensures our charge nurses and leaders use their critical thinking skills and professional expertise to address staffing needs.
• We have processes in place to measure if we’re meeting our targets and make changes if we’re not. This allows us to be good stewards of our resources as well. 
• We have many resources to address changing and unexpected patient needs, including our nurse float pools and sitters. 
• We also have additional resources for our registered nurses, such as support staff (health unit coordinators and nursing assistants), along with innovative roles like our virtual nurses and discharge nurses that help our hospital registered nurses focus on providing the in-person care only they can deliver.
• An area of opportunity is the hiring of additional support staff, which has been continuous work in progress. We’ve developed a nursing assistant program that includes on-the-job training, formal education and certification to solve some gaps.
• Our excellent 4- and 5-star Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ratings at our Duluth hospitals are a testament to the safe, patient-centered, high-quality care we provide. 
• Nurses choose to stay at Essentia – including our long-time nurses. Our Twin Ports registered nurse hospital retention rates are better than the national average – and our turnover rates have improved considerably since the last time we had contract negotiations with this group.

 

May 6 Update

Update on fifth negotiation session

Today we completed our fifth bargaining session with the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) for a new contract. We are over halfway through the eight bargaining days the MNA accepted, out of the 54 potential days we offered. We greeted our nurses with recognition for National Nurses Week. 

Session activities

• The MNA submitted written Requests for Information (RFI) before our morning and afternoon session, repeating many issues already discussed at the bargaining table.
• The MNA provided a partial response to Essentia’s initial proposal from April 11 – addressing only 15 of 31 proposals.
• Nurse testimonials centered on personal nurse/patient experience.

Staffing discussions

• The MNA presented personal experiences from nine nurses. We listened and asked questions, emphasizing the goal of negotiations to address staffing and patient needs overall, rather than individual issues.
• We shared how our core staffing plan, together with our day-of staffing plan where we regularly evaluate staffing levels, addresses patient needs. Our contract proposals seek the flexibility to address any concerns immediately when they arise.
• It appeared that many, but not all, of the issues raised in the nurse stories pertain to the lack of support staff who are not covered by this bargaining agreement, but which we are actively working to address. For example, between the end of 2022 and 2024, we increased the number of nursing assistants and health unit coordinators (HUCs) who support our RNs and patient care from 360 to 441. 

Concerns and next steps

• The MNA still has not provided an economic proposal.
• We encouraged the MNA to submit RFIs ahead of meetings to facilitate efficient discussions.
• Essentia has fully responded to the MNA's initial proposal, continues to answer all questions and during the last session provided a counterproposal on Sick Leave.
• We have achieved a couple of minor tentative agreements, including a tentative agreement on vacation request timing during the last session. 
• We continue to experience delays from the MNA, such as not being ready to start negotiations at the set time, not submitting requests for information in advance of the session and only providing a response to half of our initial proposal from April 11.

Only three meeting dates remain before the contract expires on June 30. We continue to stress the importance of using our remaining time effectively to maximize our chances of bringing negotiations to a conclusion by contract expiration. Our next meeting is May 14.

May 1 Update

Update on fourth negotiation session

Yesterday, representatives from Essentia Health and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) held their fourth bargaining session. 

• Essentia’s proposal: Essentia presented a revised proposal on temporary staffing adjustments/low-need days, which retained both voluntary and mandatory on-call at St. Mary’s Hospital-Superior. Essentia also proposed that the parties agree to explore on-call at St. Mary’s Medical Center and Essentia Health-Duluth after negotiations are completed as a way to address staffing concerns. The MNA raised questions about the proposal, which were addressed during the discussion session.
• MNA’s LOU: The MNA also provided Essentia with a Letter of Understanding to include RN patient flow coordinators in the Twin Ports acute care collective bargaining unit with a 15% pay increase retroactive to July 17, 2024. After a break, Essentia shared with the MNA that, due to differing job duties than those of nurses caring for patients in the hospital setting, RN patient flow coordinators should negotiate a separate collective bargaining agreement. We asked the MNA if they had any additional response to our proposals, reminding them that we had responded to all their proposals. They had nothing further for us at that time. 
• Staffing proposal discussion: In a mid-afternoon session, the MNA presented information about their staffing proposal via PowerPoint. We listened. We then expressed concerns that their proposal was moving in the wrong direction, emphasizing the need for patient-focused staffing rather than the rigid staffing ratios they continue to propose. We also highlighted the importance of maintaining flexibility to ensure that administrative processes do not delay patient care. 
• Current practices: We highlighted the benefit of our current staffing practices. We are constantly reviewing staffing and census to ensure that we have the appropriate number of nurses available to meet our patients’ needs. Our nurse leaders are regularly engaging with nurse colleagues to understand what’s happening on the unit and how we can make adjustments on a daily basis to ensure that we’re properly staffed. We also emphasized the importance of peer review and feedback without delaying patient care.  
• Negotiation concerns: Essentia reached out earlier this year and offered 54 dates to bargain for a new contract before the June 30 contract expires. After completing the fourth bargaining session of eight that the MNA agreed to, we are concerned about a lack of counterproposals from the MNA at this stage in negotiations. In addition, Essentia has still not received MNA's economic proposals. We will continue to share our perspectives on our patient-focused staffing practices and the many ways we support our nurses as we work toward reaching a new contract.

 

April 24 Update

Update on third negotiation session

Essentia Health and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) completed their third negotiation session today toward a new contract for Essentia’s Twin Ports acute care nurses. The parties met for about two and a half hours over the course of four meetings throughout the day.

Today’s discussions were composed solely of questions posed by the MNA and answers provided by Essentia. We answered MNA questions from last week’s session, addressed new questions about additional aspects of our original proposal, and responded to follow-up questions. Though many of the follow-up questions asked by the MNA were unrelated to the proposals made by Essentia, we answered in full and later requested the MNA focus its questions on our proposals. One Essentia proposal that we discussed would allow cross-facility floating, language several other bargaining units have agreed to over the last 18 months. We highlighted the advantages for patients and our colleagues when nurses have the opportunity to work at other Essentia sites not covered by their bargaining agreement. We discussed the practice being completely voluntary and how nurses would be paid.

Even though this was our third full day meeting with the MNA, the MNA has not provided Essentia with its full proposal. Essentia is still waiting for the MNA’s economic proposal. The MNA did not provide a counterproposal today either, saying they are still evaluating our initial proposal that we provided during our first session on April 11. We emphasized we have some distance to go to reach agreement by June 30, and that is best achieved by exchanging proposals to move the process forward.

Our next meeting is scheduled for April 30. We have responded to all MNA proposals with the exception of a proposal covering temporary staffing adjustments during low-need days. We both agree that Duluth and Superior hospitals should be handled similarly, and we will provide the MNA with a full counterproposal next week. As noted above, we await the MNA’s economic proposal and a response to our initial proposal.

Though we offered the MNA 54 days to meet in April, May and June in an effort to reach an agreement prior to the expiration of our collective bargaining agreement, the MNA only agreed to schedule eight days. With today’s session, we have five more days scheduled before the June 30 expiration:

• April 30
• May 6, 14 and 22
• June 12

 

April 15 Update

Update on second negotiation session 

Essentia Health and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) met for the second time on Tuesday, April 15, at the Duluth Labor Temple. There are six more scheduled negotiation dates that have been accepted by the MNA. They are:

• April 24 and 30
• May 6, 14 and 22
• June 12

Today’s session was initially scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. However, the MNA needed more time to prepare, and our first joint session occurred at 11:15. It started with Essentia providing a full response to the union’s first proposal, which was presented on Friday, April 11. After our response, we received questions from the union regarding our initial proposals that were offered on April 11.

Essentia’s bargaining team responded to these questions and provided a revision to our proposal on hours and scheduling. We agreed to an MNA proposal that revises non-discrimination language, and we highlighted labor management committee (LMC) language from other MNA contracts to give context for the changes we are seeking to make to the LMC language in this contract.

We answered follow-up questions from the MNA regarding orientation, professional nursing, our LMC proposal and other topics. Our focus is on commonsense solutions that will help reduce administrative burden and focuses our time on our nurses and patients. Bringing the Twin Ports LMC structure into closer alignment with other bargaining units will move us toward those goals.

Essentia and the union share common ground on handling temporary staffing and low-need days uniformly across our Twin Ports hospitals.

Essentia continues to focus on patient care and ensuring our nurses have a valuable voice in the work they do. We answered many of the questions posed by the MNA and explained our continued focus on being agile, getting information to and from front-line nurses and addressing issues in real-time.

 

April 11 Update

Update on first negotiation session

Essentia Health and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) held their first of eight scheduled contract negotiations on Friday, April 11, 2025, at Essentia. The remaining meeting dates accepted by the MNA are:

• April 15, 24 and 30
• May 6, 14 and 22
• June 12

Today, the parties exchanged their initial proposals.

Essentia’s bargaining team presented non-economic proposals to update a range of contract provisions, including hours and scheduling, cross-facility floating and committee participation. The goal is to simplify and streamline the 122-page contract, bringing it into closer alignment with other labor contracts and enhancing our ability to focus on patient needs. 

The MNA also presented proposals for consideration and provided a high-level overview of those proposals. The Essentia Health bargaining team asked some initial clarifying questions and continues to evaluate the MNA's extensive set of proposals. While there appears to be some common ground between the parties, many more differences exist.

This is the first day of negotiations, and we expect, as is usual with bargaining, that proposals will change considerably throughout negotiations. Essentia’s focus as we move forward will be on achieving a contract that puts patients and each nurse’s voice first while continuing to provide a competitive wage and benefit package to our dedicated nurses.