Following an unsuccessful bargaining session on Friday, striking union members with SEIU Healthcare MN & IA at HealthPartners Stillwater Medical Group say they plan to vote again later this month on whether to hold a longer unfair labor practice strike.
The group’s current four-day strike is scheduled to conclude at 7 a.m. Saturday, with Urgent Care employees returning to work this weekend and the rest of the group returning to work on Monday.
Susan Ribanszky, a certified medical assistant in family medicine and SEIU Healthcare MN & IA bargaining team member, said Friday that she and other union members were frustrated with HealthPartners’ latest offer. Friday’s bargaining session was the eighth bargaining session between the two groups.
HealthPartners “asked for us to come back in to bargain this morning,” she said. “We came in hopeful to reach an agreement. They presented us with a proposal that did not move forward on even one item from what they had proposed the last time we met last week. The only move they made, in fact, was backwards: they put back on the table an employer proposal regarding PTO and holidays that they had previously agreed to drop.”
A HealthPartners statement said the organization values all of its colleagues, including those represented by SEIU.
“We will continue offering market-competitive wages and benefits, and we have a fair contract proposal on the table. We’re hopeful that we can resume negotiations as soon as the union is ready,” the statement said.
Ribanszky said the Stillwater union members are “united in demanding equal pay for equal work, to get the same wage increases other HealthPartners employees doing the same jobs at other clinics already receive.”
Workers were joined on the picket line this week by Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Attorney General Keith Ellison.
The union consists of more than 80 workers including licensed practical nurses, certified medical assistants and other service-unit healthcare positions in the family medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics and specialties departments at the clinic.
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