Nurses Putting Patients Before Profits

Minnesota Nurses Association Authorizes Strike

By HARRY, RN, MNA Union Steward

On August 15th, the nurses of Minnesota’s union hospitals voted to authorize a strike. Here’s why:

The world recognized the COVID pandemic as a war, the biggest global health crisis since the Black Plague. Healthcare workers, nurses in particular, were fighting on the front lines. But despite surviving this horror, and despite the hospitals sometimes lauding us, nurses were not given a hero’s parade. We got no GI Bill or significant wage increase for being battle-hardened survivors. Instead, we continue to face unprecedented workplace violence and a choice by hospitals to choose profits over patients.

The Minnesota Nurses Association has been negotiating new contracts for nurses, the first new contracts since the pandemic. The hospitals that employ us, including Abbott Northwestern and Children’s Minneapolis, are not taking us seriously.

It is a myth that there is a shortage of nurses. In fact, there are enough registered nurses to man Minnesota’s hospitals, but there are not enough RNs willing to work in unsafe conditions. The reason nurses are burnt out is not because we are underpaid. We are tired of seeing our patients injured because of institutional policies that shun safe practices.… Read the rest “Nurses Putting Patients Before Profits”