Essentia Health’s Deer River workers bring their strike to Duluth

The longest SEIU strike continues with nearly 40 days of an ongoing strike. Essentia Health’s Deer River workers decided to bring their picket line down to St. Mary’s Hospital. Several other labor groups joined in solidarity like AFSCME, MNA and the United Steelworkers.

Kim Kaiser, a Spokesperson from Essentia Health, says the language in the contract offer is their Cross-Facility Floating model. Specifically employees would have be asked to travel and work at other nearby Essentia Health owned hospitals.

“This is really a concept that is a big benefit for our patients and for our colleagues as well. This is an opportunity for some of our colleagues at SEIU, if they choose to, to go and help colleagues at another facility,” Kaiser said. “In certain circumstances, say we had an unexpected illness or an emergency. It would allow us to make sure we could best meet our patients’ needs.”

Kaiser says Essentia Health is hopeful to reach a tentative agreement with SEIU at the next bargaining table session.

“It’s certainly our hope that we can come together and make meaningful progress as we have our next negotiation session. Also reaching an agreement that is realistic, that’s sustainable,” Kaiser said. “That makes us have the opportunity to continue to have the healthcare that we all count on in Deer River.”

Sarah Jo Roberts, a Certified Surgical Technologist with Essentia Health’s Deer River facility, says the strike will continue until their demands are met. She says the The union representing the striking workers, reported that they voted overwhelmingly to reject Essentia’s offer on January 7.

“Essentia’s proposal it doesn’t even come close to what is sustainable for us to live off of. We’re not gonna leave this strike line until we get what we’ve earned, and we have earned a lot,” Jo Roberts said. “They are proposing a 3% wage increase that isn’t even across the board. That is everybody’s wage increase added together.”

The SEIU representing the Deer River workers and Essentia Health will be meeting next Wednesday January 22nd. WDIO News will continue to cover the SEIU Deer River Strike and any other new updates.