Proposed Mayo Clinic Nurses Union Aims to Raise Awareness, Launch Union Card Campaign This Summer – Post Bulletin

ROCHESTER — The Med City Nursing Alliance, which is seeking to unionize nurses at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, will continue its independent union campaign this summer, with more community outreach planned.

The group began its efforts in earnest in April, hosting informational meetings for registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and certified registered nurse anesthetists who could potentially be represented by MCNA. Today, Tiffany Lawler, the group’s founder and a registered labor and delivery nurse, regularly posts 15- to 20-minute videos in a private Facebook group, she said, to answer questions and provide updates on the process.

“People can, of course, share them … and they’re there for reference,” Lawler said. “It’s been positive.”

The MCNA leadership team will continue to raise awareness by participating in events around Rochester, Lawler said, including the Riverside Music Series and Downtown Thursdays.

“We have … one person who has ordered different merchandise and stuff so that we can be at different summer activities in Rochester this summer,” Lawler said, “to educate and just spread the word.”

Lawler said MCNA leaders would also join any future informational pickets held by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa, which is currently negotiating a new contract for its 1,600 paramedics at Mayo Clinic Hospital’s Saint Marys campus. These workers and their supporters demonstrated on May 28.

“Mayo Clinic nurses are leaders in their fields and are essential to maintaining our position at the forefront of clinical practice, education and research,” Mayo Clinic said in a statement regarding the ongoing efforts of the MCNA. “Our nurses and experience tell us that a direct, open line of communication with leadership helps resolve issues, improves processes and continues to put patient needs first. We take a multidisciplinary, team-based approach to care and continue to believe that a direct relationship with staff benefits our employees and helps us provide the best possible outcomes for our patients.

Meanwhile, Lawler said MCNA intends to send out union authorization cards “over the next couple of weeks.”

To form a union, the first step is to have 30 percent of the bargaining unit – the workers who would be represented by the union – sign union authorization cards. These cards would be submitted to the National Labor Relations Board, which would then oversee an election in which these workers would vote for or against unionization.

Lawler said the goal is for MCNA to become an independent union. Lawler previously told the Post Bulletin that MCNA considered affiliating with an established union, but plans changed. She referenced two hospitals with “high retention, high staff satisfaction and low patient events” with unionized nurses: Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children’s Health Stanford in California, and PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center in Oregon.

“Stanford is actually an independent nurses union that represents about 5,000 nurses,” Lawler said. “They were created in 2020, 2021, and then they had a contract ratified in 2022.”

Lawler said she hopes to learn more from these groups in order to draft a contract.

“Then this will be presented to the nurses,” Lawler said. “I know if someone came to me and said, ‘Hey, do you want us to represent you?’ I would like to see a contract, even if nothing in the contract is a guarantee or, in any case, 100% achievable, but at least I can know where their goals are, where they are going, what they have done, that I know what I’m getting into.”

The nursing alliance, as first reported by the Post Bulletin in April, is seeking to unionize 6,532 nursing staff at the Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus for higher wages, better benefits and changes in patient-nurse ratios.

On May 6, the first day of National Nurses Week, the group and its supporters marched through downtown Rochester to draw attention to their organizing efforts.

An estimated 5 percent of Mayo Clinic employees in Rochester are represented by a union. Registered nurses at some Mayo Clinic Health System hospitals, such as Red Wing, Albert Lea and Austin, are unionized with the Minnesota Nurses Association.