More than 12,000 Minnesota nurses begin contract negotiations

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4394

ST. PAUL - Saying their 12,000 members are committed to standing united in the coming months, Minnesota nurses formally began labor contract negotiations with six Twin Cities hospital systems on Tuesday.
“The safety and quality of care for our patients is on the line,” said Minnesota Nurses Association President Linda Hamilton, who works as a registered nurse in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. “Nurses always have and always will be an outspoken advocate for the men, women and children of Minnesota who are put under our care. These negotiations are all about the bottom line. For nurses, that bottom line remains the same – patients before profits.”

The current labor contract between 12,000 Minnesota Nurses and six Twin Cities hospital systems (North Memorial, HealthEast, Allina, Methodist, Children’s and Fairview) expires on May 31. After several weeks of bargaining, nurses will vote on May 19 to either ratify the new contract or authorize a strike. The last time there was a large-scale RN strike in Minnesota was 1984, when 6,000 nurses walked off the job for 35 days. It remains the largest RN strike in U.S. history.

At the forefront of 2010 talks are two issues – RN staffing levels and the nurses’ pension fund, which has been in place since 1962.

“More than 72,000 people in this country needlessly die every year because hospitals don’t have enough nurses on staff,” Hamilton said, referencing a 2005 Medical Care Journal study. “The numbers don’t lie. If you don’t have enough nurses working, people are going to die when they don’t need to. So we’ll keep saying it until we’re blue in the face: Safe staffing saves lives.”

Pension bargaining between nurses and the hospital systems began during early March, and the hospitals have made it clear they want to cut the nurses’ pension funding by a third.

FULL story at link.