Twin Cities Nurses Goes For Strike For A Week Starting Sunday Morning

About 5,000 nurses of Twin Cities from five hospitals will be walking out of work on Sunday at 7 a.m.

The hospitals which will be affected are operated by Allina Health – Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis, Mercy in Coon Rapids, United in St. Paul, Unity in Fridley, and Philips Eye Institute in Minneapolis.

It is reported the nurses will be on strike for a week and the main dispute is the effort of Allina in shifting the union nurses to similar health insurance plans that is prevalent to about 30,000 other employees of the organization and their family members. The policy of these employees carry higher out-of-pocket costs and lower monthly premiums.

Last time such major strike by the nurses of Twin Cities was in 2010.

Meanwhile, the Allina Health has said to be keeping the facilities operating with replacement nurses.

Allina CEO said the patient care would not be affected during the strike. More than 14,000 replacement nurses have been called.

A press release on Saturday read, “All Allina Health hospitals will be open and caring for patients during the strike. Highly qualified, experienced replacement nurses will be working.”

Nurse Barbara Slagg said they had tried raising their issues about staffing and workplace violence, but the organization said wouldn’t entertain until the transitioning out of their affordable health care plans are done.