Employees at a dozen nursing homes across the region have set a March 5 date for a 24-hour strike.
The strike vote is part of a coordinated wave of labor actions by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and other Minnesota unions and some nonunion workers to organize a mass walkout in early March.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota President Jamie Gulley said 1,000 nursing home workers will be participating in the 24-hour strike.
“There’s been no further progress in bargaining,” Gulley said Friday afternoon.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa and United Food and Commercial Workers 663 are bargaining to get their workers higher pay, affordable health insurance, a pension and higher staffing levels, union leaders said at a Thursday news conference.
Workers were asking for a minimum pay of $25 per hour. More than half of workers are still getting paid less than $20 per hour, Gulley said.
Monyou Taye, a nursing assistant and union steward at St. Therese of New Hope, spoke out Tuesday on the need for increased wages in her industry. She said the wages could help retain staff and ease workloads.
“It makes us feel burned out and makes us feel angry that we are having to face this situation. We need higher wages,” Taye said.
While nursing home workers are preparing for the one-day walkout, the state’s newly created Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board began holding public forums earlier this month.
Last year, the Legislature created the board, which will have the power to investigate working conditions and set minimum pay for nursing home workers across the state. Having the state set minimum standards gives unions more power to bargain collectively with multiple nursing home operators, the Minnesota Reformer reported last year.
Gulley said the unions can’t wait for changes coming from the board, however. The soonest they would take effect is January 1, 2025, he said.
Coordinated labor action
According to SEIU, nearly 15,000 Twin Cities workers across industries have voted to authorize strikes. But thus far only the nursing home workers have set a date.
Industries affected include downtown Minneapolis janitors and security guards, nursing home workers across the metro, airport workers and teachers.
Workers are bargaining individually by sector or industry but decided to band together in a show of support in early October.
Gulley said the unions’ combined efforts have been in place for over a year.
“A lot of us recognized that we had common expiration dates for our contracts. And we’re sort of excited about the idea of if we were able to link up on our fights, what can we possibly win,” Gulley said.
Greg Nammacher, SEIU Local 26 president, said on Thursday even though many of the organizations authorized strikes, clear dates aren’t available yet.
“We’ve set the deadline for early March for all of our organizations but each organization will set their own specific date and those will come out in the next week or so,” Nammacher said.
According to Minnesota law, unions must set a 10-day notice before going on strike. Gulley said nursing home workers are “full steam ahead” in their plans to have a strike on March 5. No more votes will be taken by nursing homes as the notice has been given.
