Star Tribune
Mayo Clinic faces worker distress as employees bargain, unionize
ROCHESTER – Cheryl Tran wasn’t even supposed to be at work the day union members picketed outside of St. Marys Hospital.
A facilities worker at Mayo Clinic for more than 40 years, Tran had the week off but showed up to picket on May 28 as hospital support staffers negotiate their latest contract with Mayo.
“It’s time we get some fair wages, staffing, break times,” Tran said. “It’s been a struggle.”
Mayo Clinic is one of the world’s top hospitals, but hundreds of Rochester workers say the medical system isn’t treating its workers like they’re world-class.
About 1,600 unionized clinical technicians, personal care attendants, janitors and others are seeking at least $20-per-hour wages, in line with other hospitals around Minnesota. Rochester nurses are looking into unionizing, which would create a union with more than 6,500 members in Minnesota’s third-largest city.
Meanwhile, thousands more workers are set to come to Rochester as Mayo builds its $5 billion expansion downtown.
“[Mayo officials] treat our physicians like royalty,” said Tiffany Lawler of the Med City Nursing Alliance, a group of nurses spearheading the unionization effort in Rochester. “I wish they could treat their nursing staff as well.”
In a statement, Mayo said its leaders are continuing to address some staffing areas, but are proud of the medical system’s recruitment and retention record, which includes hiring more than 750 nurses last year.
“Nothing is more important to us than ensuring we provide the best possible care for our patients, supported by a workplace that remains a destination for top talent,” said Mayo spokeswoman Andrea Kalmanovitz.
Mayo, like other hospitals, was hit hard during COVID by mounting medical workforce shortages as staff burned out or retired. A 2022 report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development found more than 45,000 job vacancies in the medical field alone.
But there are early signs the shortages are turning around. The Minnesota Hospital Association’s most recent annual jobs report found hospitals around the state added more than 1,100 new employees than staff who left in 2022 — the first overall net worker gain since before the pandemic.
‘They were venting, they were crying’
The staffing rebound can’t come soon enough for Mayo workers, who say the medical system doesn’t have enough workers to maintain patient care standards.
Karrie Ellingson, a personal care attendant and a member of the SEIU bargaining team at St. Marys, said her department needs 28 attendants to serve about 150 patients on average each day.
“We consistently have been working 30 percent short every day, not including PCAs who may call in ill,” she said.
Ashley Rohwer, a certified surgical technologist at Mayo for almost two decades, said in her department at St. Marys, union and nonunion workers put in a combined average of 30 hours of overtime each day.
“Most employees if they’re [scheduled] at an eight-hour shift on a regular basis, most of them are working 12-hour shifts,” she said.
Lawler started to look into unionizing after Mayo Clinic threatened to move its multibillion-dollar expansion plans out of Minnesota during the Minnesota Legislature’s 2023 session.
A Mayo lobbyist emailed Gov. Tim Walz and warned that the project could have been in jeopardy if he signed state legislation regulating hospital nurse staffing and penalizing hospitals with excessive cost growth. The legislation would have required hospitals to set up committees — with nurses making up 35% of the membership — to set staffing levels and reduce nurses’ workloads.
Mayo officials told workers the bills would have hurt operations, but Lawler said she thought they would have helped nurses have more input and protections.
“Our Legislature let us down just as much as the hospital,” she said.
A focus group on practice changes at Mayo gave Lawler a stark look at other nursing units inside St. Marys. As a labor and delivery nurse, Lawler said she saw few organizational issues — staffing wasn’t an issue and mandatory overtime only happened three or four times a year.
That wasn’t the case in other departments. The focus group of about 15 nurses revealed ongoing stress from staff shortages, an increase in events where patients become more ill or died, and a surplus of overtime across the board.
“They were venting, they were crying, they were saying how broken they were, how they were leaving the profession,” Lawler said. “The staffing situations they were in, the moral distress for not being able to care for patients they way they want in order to feel like they’re doing their job as a caregiver, their needs were not being met.”
Mayo officials have in the past defended the Rochester hospital’s medical record, emphasizing its reputation as a prominent health care center. A recent state report on preventable errors in hospitals across Minnesota showed Mayo Clinic’s number of errors decreased in the last 12-month period surveyed ending in October — 53 events in the most recent report compared to 63 events from October 2021 to October 2022.
What the future holds
In April, Mayo officials said in a letter to nurses that a union could lead to limited work flexibility and cause more workforce issues. Sherry Wolf, Mayo’s chief nursing officer, said at the time the hospital system prefers to have a direct relationship with staff.
“Working together directly helps our teams excel when caring for patients, improving processes or solving problems,” Wolf said. “Each staff member plays a role in that meaningful work. In the union environment, many important decisions will be subject to negotiation. Union engagement does not guarantee a specific result.”
The Med City Nursing Alliance hosted a silent march last month to honor nurses. The group plans to collect more information this summer about organizing a union and potentially hold a vote this fall.
Lawler said Rochester Mayo Clinic nurses will likely form their own union instead of going through the Minnesota Nurses Association, in part due to the number of nurses at Mayo.
SEIU workers have been in bargaining for a new contract since February. Among their goals: wage increases, floating holidays for non-Christian or Jewish staff and more designated break times.
Mayo has most recently proposed a 3.5% wage increase in the first year of the new contract, with another 1.5% in 2025 and 2.25% in 2026. That could mean slight wage increases of less than a dollar for some workers, according to Hallie Wallace, SEIU’s lead negotiator.
A bargaining meeting Thursday broke down as union officials and Mayo leadership couldn’t find common ground on wage proposals, or even on how long the union’s next contract should be. SEIU wants a two-year contract to renegotiate wages sooner, while Mayo reportedly won’t budge on a three-year deal.
SEIU members will vote next week on whether to enter arbitration.
Mayo officials in a statement said they’re committed to reaching “a mutually beneficial agreement.”
“We have reached tentative agreement on several topics, and we will continue to negotiate in good faith. We hope SEIU does the same, and we have historically been able to resolve our negotiations amicably,” officials said.
Union workers recently voted to abandon their arbitration agreement in favor of the right to strike during the next round of negotiations two to three years from now. The agreement has been in place between Mayo and SEIU since the 1970s.
Wallace said that’s due in part to worker frustrations around bargaining this time around.
“It will give us an immense amount of pressure in our next round of negotiations in a way that we’ve never had,” Wallace said. “I think even our members just saying the word strike … terrifies them.”
Star Tribune
Federal guilty plea outlines a rash of violent carjackings across Twin Cities since 2021
A 21-year-old St. Paul man linked to a vast spree of violent robberies and carjackings in the Twin Cities has now pleaded guilty to federal charges that also include possessing a stolen handgun.
Ricardo Rydell Walker, Jr. entered a guilty plea Tuesday in U.S. District Court that included admitting to stealing a sport-utility vehicle after striking the owner in the head with a handgun June 28, 2022. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Walker also admitted to aiding and abetting three other carjackings that took place between 2021 and June of this year — the latter taking place while Walker was in jail on his federal charges.
His convictions carry a maximum 15-year federal prison sentence, but prosecutors have agreed not to request a sentence above 6 1/2 years. U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez has not yet scheduled a sentencing date.
A message seeking comment has been left with the federal defender representing Walker.
According to court records, Walker was arrested in Maplewood after police and Ramsey County deputies found him and his accomplices sleeping inside a different stolen car than the vehicle he carjacked six days earlier. Walker rammed a nearby squad car after being stirred awake and fled onto public roads before colliding with another vehicle. Police arrested Walker and others following a brief foot chase.
Police also found Walker in possession of a Springfield Armory Hellcat 9mm handgun. After tracing the firearm’s serial number, officers discovered that the gun had been reported stolen out of Minneapolis. Walker later told a detective that he bought the handgun from an unknown man in Minneapolis a day before his arrest.
Walker’s crime spree netted criminal charges in multiple counties before his case went federal. The June 2022 carjacking followed three violent robberies on June 28 that took place on the Augsburg and University of Minnesota campuses and at a West St. Paul apartment complex. According to charges, Walker and his accomplices pulled off another robbery in West St. Paul earlier on the morning of his eventual arrest.
Walker’s penchant for armed robbery began in February 2021, less than two months after he turned 18. Within a year, one criminal complaint read, officers said they were “well-acquainted” with Walker and at least one of his accomplices for “having been involved in numerous robberies/carjackings. [They] were known to display firearms and known to target expensive vehicles.”
NEW YORK — This Thanksgiving, solar storms may produce faint auroras across the northern rim of the United States.
Pale auroras may be seen across many northern states Thursday and Friday, but they may be brief and and seeing them will depend on how intense the solar storms get, NOAA meteorologist Mike Bettwy said in an email.
Much of the following states are best positioned for potential auroras: Washington, Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine. Northern parts of Idaho, Wyoming, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire may also see auroras.
Space weather experts say auroras could be visible from 10 p.m. EST Thursday to 1 a.m. Friday EST, though it’s difficult to pin down an exact window. Updated forecasts may be available as the event draws closer on NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center website or an aurora forecasting app.
To spy the spectacle, wait for clear skies to get dark and then go outside, ideally away from bright city lights. Taking a picture with a smartphone camera may also reveal hints of the aurora that aren’t visible to the naked eye.
The sun is currently at the maximum phase of its 11-year cycle, making solar surges and northern lights more frequent. Earlier this week, the sun shot a pulse of high-energy plasma towards Earth.
The active period is expected to last for at least another year, though scientists won’t know when solar activity peaked until months after the fact, according to NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Experts don’t expect major communication disruptions from this week’s solar storm.
Officials on Wednesday publicly identified the man who was fatally shot outside a Minneapolis gas station this week.
Hussanee Abdul-Malik Harris, 23, of Minneapolis, was shot in the back Monday at the Full Stop Gas & Food at 1818 Lowry Av. N. and died that same day at North Memorial Health Hospital, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
Police said no arrests have been made as of Wednesday afternoon in connection with this homicide.
The shooting occurred about 11:45 a.m., when someone approached Harris, words were exchanged and gunfire erupted, police said.
This block in the Jordan neighborhood has earned a reputation for drug dealing, prostitution and, occasionally, gunfire in recent years — with neighbors singling out the gas station on the corner as a longtime magnet for trouble.
Police calls to the business number in the hundreds since Jan. 1, records show, mainly for directed patrols, various disturbances and drug activity. But officers have also responded at least 15 times to reports of a person with a firearm, shots fired calls, assaults and robberies on the property this year.
In 2020, a teenager was killed and another person wounded when a dispute between two groups escalated into gunfire. A few weeks earlier, a 48-year-old man died after being shot while sitting inside a car near N. Logan and Lowry avenues.
The previous year, 16-year-old Caleb Livingston suffered permanent paralysis and was left in a near-vegetative state after being shot in the head while on a quick detour at the Full Stop to fill his gas tank. The boy was in Minneapolis, visiting from Illinois, when a brief confrontation erupted near the pumps.
