9/3 Bargaining Update
Links
Video Update: https://youtu.be/rIUxUIQzEwY
Strike Auth Support Form: https://form.jotform.com/251803636089159
Proposals: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TxrZqRZphZcsMHyoSt93FKWPLEhCuzUe?usp=sharing
We are happy to announce that we came to agreements on multiple sections of the contract - Safety, Scheduling, and On-Call. We had been working on these sections for a long time, and are happy to be in agreement with Allina. Of course, we did not get everything we wanted, but believe we have improvements in each of these sections compared to our current working conditions.
To highlight a few new benefits:
Scheduling - We bargained for more autonomy in creating our templates as well as making schedule changes. We also have language that prevents Allina from changing your template (visit lengths, number of appts per day, etc) unless you agree. For Urgent Care we were finally able to get Allina to agree to a maximum of 3 sites for providers, although future hires can be scheduled up to 4 sites.
On Call - We will now have the ability for each pool of on call providers to decide who should be taking call for their pool. Previously, site management could unilaterally decide who would take call. We are happy these decisions will be in the hands of the providers. We also have language regarding a workflow for receiving inappropriate calls, like calls from specialties outside of Primary Care
Safety - Our new contract gives us the ability to decide for ourselves if we no longer feel safe seeing a patient or family member that harasses or threatens us. We also negotiated to participate in any workplace safety committees.
We did give Allina an adjusted Urgent Care Economic proposal today. We came down on what we are asking for hourly pay for providers. Our proposal would still give everyone in Urgent Care a significant raise, while Allina is still fighting to decrease pay for all Urgent Care Providers.
Allina returned in the afternoon with a response to our updated proposal. They provided some improvements to their offer for Urgent Care compensation, specifically in the conversion factor for APPs (from 50th percentile to 55th). They did not address any other compensation items.
As a bargaining team, we had a frank discussion today in terms of how to move forward with the contract, particularly the economics. While our group did vote to authorize a strike, we would rather not strike and are hopeful we can work together with Allina to get to a fair contract. We hope to continue to see progress from Allina in our upcoming bargaining sessions.
