Star Tribune
Federal labor ruling backs Mercy doctors’ union vote
A federal hearing officer has rejected Allina Health’s challenge to a unionization vote by doctors at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids and Fridley.
The officer’s 68-page recommendation to the National Labor Relations Board argues that Allina had failed to prove that two pro-union doctors were supervisors, and that a third had used her supervisory clout to influence others.
Allina “failed to establish that [the doctors] engaged in objectionable pro-union conduct,” according to the ruling, issued late last week.
Allina responded Monday with a motion to delay proceedings and give its leaders more time to decide whether to appeal the ruling. A statement from the health system Wednesday said officials were “disappointed” by the decision, “but remain steadfast in our support for our physicians and their well-being.”
Barring a successful appeal, the recommendation would empower the New York-based Doctors Council to exclusively represent Mercy’s full- and part-time doctors and pursue negotiations.
Dr. Alia Sharif, a Mercy hospitalist who spearheaded the union drive, said the health system should “recognize and accept this change.”
Sixty-seven Allina-employed doctors voted in March to unionize while 38 opposed the move. Allina initially challenged 30 ballots, but 10 were validated and the remainder weren’t enough to change the outcome.
“The physicians have spoken and they have a voice now,” Sharif said. “The election result will be the same, challenged 10 times over.”
The recommendation came days before the start of voting Thursday by hundreds of Allina outpatient doctors and other clinicians on whether to unionize. Their separate drive could result in one of the largest groups of unionized doctors in the United States.
COVID-19 has had a pivotal influence on the union movement. Doctors said the vote likely wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic, which forced Allina and other health systems to lean on their providers at times to work excessive hours, rely on limited protective gear, and treat a challenging and infectious patient population.
COVID also heightened financial challenges for Allina, leaving it in poor position to cede control to doctors or pay for resulting contract demands. The health system lost $122 million on operations this spring, according to its most recent quarterly financial statement.
Sharif was one of the three doctors accused of being a supervisor and exerting undue influence on others. She serves on an advisory council that recommends practices for Mercy’s hospitalists — doctors who care for patients while they are admitted to hospital beds. Most of the doctors who voted were hospitalists.
The hearing officer disagreed with the accusation, finding that the council on which Sharif serves “is, at bottom, an advisory mechanism” and that “its decision making authority is circumscribed by Allina Health policies.”
The officer also noted that Allina’s antiunion campaign of emails, fliers and meetings with high-level executives “would have mitigated any pro-union conduct” if the doctors theoretically had any coercive influence over colleagues.
The officer found that one pro-union physician, Dr. Sarah Schoel, had potential influence over others as chief of staff for the hospital and chair of the hospital’s medical education committee. However, the ruling noted that most of her union lobbying occurred after she was no longer chief of staff and was directed at colleagues over whom she held no direct supervisory authority.
A judge acquitted a 37-year-old man of threatening to harm St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Maplewood Mall and concluded that the defendant’s intention was to buy the shopping center and run for mayor.
Andrew Thomas Grzywinski, of St. Paul, was found not guilty late Thursday afternoon by Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann on two counts of threats of violence.
The suspicion took root when Grzywinski sent a former girlfriend a text on Dec. 27, 2022, showing an assault-style gun on a window ledge, with a message that read, “Maplewood Mall is my idea, and Mayor of St. Paul is an end goal,” according to the charges filed in December 2022.
The woman alerted Woodbury police because Grzywinski was staying at a hotel in that city. A Woodbury police investigator said Grzywinski had been hospitalized Dec. 15-22, 2022, in Pensacola, Fla., “on a mental health hold,” the charges read, and a doctor there said Grzywinski’s threats should be taken seriously.
Woodbury police then notified their counterparts in Maplewood and St. Paul, leading to his arrest and charges.
In returning his verdicts in writing, Guthmann said, “The text message does not state or imply a threat to commit an act of violence. There is nothing expressly or impliedly threatening about the words ‘Maplewood is my idea,’ and the existence of a gun in the background of a panorama photo of a hotel room containing many other objects does not reasonably change the character of those words.”
The judge continued, “To conclude that defendant’s text was intended as an express or implied threat to the Maplewood Mall or anyone inside is entirely speculative and without support in the evidence.”
Guthmann’s filing noted that Grzywinski, who owns his own heating and cooling business, was not mulling or making any threats against the mall or the mayor but had been telling various people close to him that he wanted to buy the mall and run for mayor.
Star Tribune
Critics say Duluth judicial candidate fought improvements to domestic violence work as city attorney
Johnson said this week he felt a victim advocate position was important, but needed to “ask the hard questions” first.
“You have to be careful of what you take on,” he said, when potentially adding employees, considering potential future budget cuts. “I explore all options before jumping into something and that’s what we did with that position.”
After Holtberg’s phone call with Johnson, she said she sought advice from others and brought the opportunity and Johnson’s initial response to former Mayor Emily Larson. Larson confirmed this week that she then directed Johnson to apply for the grant. Funding was awarded to the city, and the position remains grant-funded today. Johnson said he doesn’t think Larson told him to apply, but said her administration was part of the discussion.
“We got it done, and we got it done in a way that’s stuck with the city,” he said. “Just because you ask hard questions doesn’t mean that it’s bad … that’s what I do, and as judge I’ll ask hard questions.”
Retired city prosecutor Mary Asmus said recently that Johnson told her at the time that if that position was added, he would probably need to dismiss someone from the office’s criminal division. This was at a time when criminal caseloads were high, she said. Johnson said he doesn’t recall saying that, but noted that grant funding isn’t guaranteed to last, inevitably affecting budgets and staffing.
“I don’t think he understood the importance of a victim services coordinator to the prosecution of a domestic violence case,” Asmus said, and “he was the first Duluth City Attorney in four decades who had never prosecuted criminal cases for our office.”
The DFL candidate for a Roseville seat in the Minnesota House is pushing back on allegations from his Republican opponent that he doesn’t live in the district he hopes to represent.
Curtis Johnson is currently a member of the Roseville Area Schools board. He has owned a home in Little Canada since 2017, according to Ramsey County property records.
In May he filed to run for the open seat in House District 40B, saying he lived in an apartment complex less than 3 miles from his Little Canada home. The district includes parts of Roseville and Shoreview and has been represented by DFLer Jamie Becker-Finn, who isn’t seeking re-election, since 2017.
In a statement, Johnson said he and his wife decided to move to Roseville last year, but they’ve struggled to find the right house. In the meantime, he’s been renting “a Roseville apartment as my primary residence while we keep searching for a forever home.”
“My wife and our youngest child still live in the house because we didn’t want to disrupt our child’s life by moving the rest of the family into my apartment and then moving them again after we found a house in Roseville,” Johnson’s statement said.
Wikstrom released an ad Oct. 15 that accused Johnson of lying about his residency, but he has not committed to making a legal challenge. A residency challenge would be decided by the Minnesota Supreme Court.
“My confidence level is high that we have a solid case he is not a resident of the district,” Wikstrom said in an interview. He noted that Johnson’s vehicle is often at the Little Canada home and a portable storage container appeared out front days after his political ad went online.
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