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 driver who hit and killed a man who ran into a busy Minneapolis street has been spared prison and was sentenced on the lesser of two charges.
Camoreay L. Prowell, 38, of St. Paul, was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in Hennepin County District Court to failing to stop for a traffic collision in connection with the death of Wilson G. Chinchilla, 26, of Minneapolis, on Oct. 19, 2022, on West Broadway near N. Logan Avenue.
Judge Hilary Caligiuri set aside a 13-month term and placed Prowell on probation for three years. He has about 3½ weeks left to serve in jail. As called for in the plea agreement, the more serious charge of criminal vehicular homicide was dismissed.
When asked about dropping the higher charge, the County Attorney’s Office said in a statement, “This office weighs the specific facts of each case to determine the appropriate resolution. In this instance, the charge for which Mr. Prowell was sentenced [Thursday] is correct and appropriate.”
The complaint said that Prowell was driving at the time after his license had been canceled. Court records in Minnesota revealed he’s been convicted three times for drunken driving and at least twice for driving after his license had been revoked.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police found Chinchilla’s body in the left lane of westbound West Broadway. Video surveillance showed that he ran out of a nearby home moments earlier toward the street.
Witnesses told police that a speeding SUV hit Chinchilla, slowed briefly as it continued west, then made a U-turn and returned to the scene of the crash. Prowell stopped, looked at the body and left.
Mychel Stowers was released on parole from prison about seven months ago after he pleaded guilty to second-degree intentional murder in 2008 for fatally shooting a man in a drug deal gone wrong. According to charging documents, Stowers was living at a halfway house and granted a pass to visit his ex-wife at her North End apartment on the same day that she was killed.
Mychel Stowers’ description also matched the man witnesses saw fleeing Damara Stowers’ apartment moments after the shooting. One witness said they heard no fights or arguments before four gunshots rang. They heard another gunshot five seconds later, and another witness reported seeing a heavyset man with a white shirt and blue shorts run south afterwards.
The apartment’s owner said they were preparing to evict Damara Stowers, adding that her ex-boyfriend, a stocky man in his 30′s or 40′s, was living with her.
Police heard reports of a carjacking minutes later, finding a man shot in his leg on 99 Acker Street. Surveillance footage reviewed by authorities show someone approach that man and point something at him before a flash appeared. The man fell and the shooter ran away, but returned moments later to take the man’s vehicle and leave. That man was treated at Regions Hospital for a broken femur from a gunshot wound.
Authorities believe the gun used to carjack that man on Acker Street was the same used to kill Damara Stowers in her apartment.
There have been 25 homicides in St. Paul so far this year, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune database. There were 28 by this time last year.
The Minneapolis Police Department is on track to rack up $26 million in overtime this year — about $10 million over budget — as the number of extra hours officers work continues since a flood of officers left the force after George Floyd’s 2020 police killing and unrest that ensued.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara provided the OT figure to City Council members during a budget presentation Thursday in which he added that the department has about 210 vacancies.
“We’re using overtime every day to do the most basic functions of a police department,” he said. “It is critically low staffing right now.”
Last year, MPD paid nearly $23 million in overtime — about half of that “critical staffing overtime,” in which officers are paid double their hourly wage.
Overtime is being driven by a wave of resignations and retirements at the department, which had 578 sworn officers as of Thursday, down from nearly 900 in 2019, a 36% decrease that has left it with one of the nation’s lowest ratios of officers to residents.
MPD was averaging about $7 million in overtime prior to 2020, when it shot up to $11 million and has increased every year since, reaching $23 million last year.
Mayor Jacob Frey has proposed a $230 million budget for MPD next year, a 6% increase from 2024, or $13.7 million. Of that, $13 million is budgeted for “constitutional policing” to comply with a state human rights settlement. State and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring for civil rights violations.
Most of that goes to personnel, which comprises 77% of the budget, according to MPD Finance Director Vicki Troswick. The mayor proposes 966 full-time total MPD employees next year, compared to 935 this year. Of those, 731 sworn officers are budgeted for 2025. The city charter requires the city to employ 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, or 731 officers, although the city has struggling to reach that number amid a nationwide law enforcement staffing shortage.
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