School Board: Meet Union Demands

As the City of Minneapolis finishes its first week of the teacher and ESP (education support professional) strike, it is clear that the MPS Board of Education and the workers who make schools function are far apart. Families should expect an extended time without school for their children.

While families, community and the MPS Board of Education (BoE) would very much like our classrooms open, they cannot function without teachers and ESPs. These workers will not return until the primary demand of raising ESP pay to 35K a year with at least 90% on a full time schedule is met. Other important demands include lowering class size caps, increasing mental health supports for students, and making teacher pay more competitive with surrounding districts. 

Under the current pay, benefits, and hourly structure for ESPs there is a 25% vacancy rate and a revolving door for the filled positions. Schools cannot safely and effectively educate our children without the labor of ESPs. Under this current structure ESPs make about 24K per year. ESPs are the glue of schools. Their jobs are intense, require a lot of flexibility, and are physically and emotionally demanding. There are few who would work such a demanding job for that wage. The fact that MPS is vehemently saying no to such a reasonable wage request, speaks volumes about how little they care about their employees or about safe and stable classrooms. At the end of the day you cannot force people to work for less than they are willing, and we are living with the result of an extended strike and closed schools.

If we want this strike to end, the Minneapolis community must demand that MPS negotiate terms that will bring workers back to the classroom. The MPS bargaining team is composed primarily of HR and finance staff. These are not people who understand how classrooms function. Their perspective is through a business/legal lens and the fact that they are calling the shots in the negotiations underscores a lack of urgency from the district.

While much of the energy to reopen our schools has been focused on MPS Superintendent Ed Graff, it is time to shift all energy to the MPS BoE. A resident of Edina, Graff plays a CEO role for the district; he is not invested in the district or the community. However, Graff works for the Board. It is those 9 elected directors who can change the course of this strike. At this point the Board has not been at the negotiating table. They do not appear to be involved at all.

Most of the directors have deep ties to the DFL party, the same party whose non-BoE elected members have been attending strike pickets and posting photos on their social media claiming to support the teachers and ESPs. This is deeply problematic yet presents an opportunity for our community and families to apply pressure. MPS says there is no money to fund safe and stable schools. The Unions have published data showing otherwise and those numbers were released BEFORE the projected $9.25 BILLION State budget surplus was announced. It is absurd to claim that we cannot fully fund schools. 

Tell DFL members to stop posing for picket line photos and to start pressuring their fellow DFLers on the BoE. Ed Graff will move to another district in the next few years but these electeds and the DFL will still be here; they will own the results of this strike. There is a choice now. Either MPS suffers more than it already has (more students and teachers fleeing the district) from an extended strike or we create safe and stable schools that can thrive going forward by meeting the primary demands of the people who make our schools run.

-Theresa Stets, MPS Parent (Roosevelt, Sanford, & Keewaydin)

Update From Cliff Willmeng, RN and Editor We Do The Work

Its been a long couple of years.

I’ve been getting asked about my lawsuit and the union arbitration by many people and the matter has been resolved.

From my family and myself, I would like to offer my deepest thanks and appreciation to the frontline RNs, medical staff, and essential workers who have supported us through this incredible difficult and challenging time. As a union reformer and activist, the events surrounding the COVID 19 pandemic nearly cost me my career, and became the darkest I have ever experienced as a father, husband and an RN. Thank you profoundly for helping us stay strong through these trials. 

I am aware that throughout the country and in nearly every hospital, we are all experiencing the direct impacts of what can only be described as corporate, mismanaged, healthcare. This privatized, profit-generating commodification of medicine and ourselves as employees has led to the demoralization and moral injury of the people most important to the public health in over 100 years. In short, it exchanges safety, security, purpose of mission, and clinical decision making for money. The effects are being reported across the entire US healthcare industry in no uncertain terms. 

I have been able to return to the workforce as a local traveler since October of 2021. I have nearly finished paying the debt that nearly one and half years of unemployment have caused for myself and family. I do not regret at all standing alongside of my coworkers and fighting for workplaces safety, for the health of our patients, and for a new vision of healthcare democratically controlled by the frontline workers and the communities we serve. The last two years have only driven the importance of that task to profoundly deeper and more urgent levels. 

Take some strength knowing that we are not alone and that without us, there is nothing that management can offer to heal or protect public health, perhaps the most important task in the world. I will be reapplying myself to that goal as many of you already are now. We do not have to be afraid. 

Thank you again from myself, my family and the essential employees in healthcare. The Million Nurse March takes place on May 12, 2022 in Washington DC and I hope to see you all there. 

Cliff Willmeng, RN 

Incentive Bonuses and Pay Caps: UCH Programming Complication into Their Pay Structure

“To all of the nurses who’ve worked extra shifts or were redeployed to assist with the latest COVID-19 surge, I am deeply appreciative” Katherine Howell

Chief Nursing Officer University of Colorado Hospital

Exhausted, frustrated, and generally dismissed, the clinical staff of University of Colorado Hospital marched head first into the Christmas holiday season with the same resolve they have displayed for two years. The clinical staff carries on despite calls from hospitals and politicians to cap nurse wages. Despite administrator complaints that “no one wants to work.” Despite travelers’ salaries three to four times higher than the average hospital worker. Despite executive staff protecting their own compensation and raking in bonuses to the tune of $230,275. Last fall, sensing the upcoming holiday and the bleak staffing situation, University of Colorado Hospital decided to chum the waters with an extra shift commitment bonus. It worked this way: between October 17 and February 19, staff who worked additional shifts would get a tiered bonus. The employee had to fill out an online form that included this phrasing: “By submitting this form, I commit to working at least 36 hours of eligible shifts…”  Along with the form, the hospital portal included a barrage of policy papers and PowerPoint presentations designed to clarify predictable confusion.  

· 6 Shifts or 72 hours = $1,500

· 5 Shifts or 60 hours = $900

· 4 Shifts or 48 hours= $700

· 3 shifts or 36 hours = $500

Seems pretty straightforward, right? 

Programmed complexity: Have you ever spent hours on the phone with customer support for a broken computer, dishwasher, router, or refrigerator until you get so exasperated that you just give up?  That’s the point. Someone in some office factors the probability of this or that and produces a chart showing how much money an organization stands to lose or save by implementing some program. For example, does your employer offer tuition reimbursement? How easy is it to apply? Who qualifies, and who approves a candidate? How difficult is it to get your money? How many people never apply because the process is too restrictive, complicated, confusing, and/or time-consuming? Health insurance companies mastered this trick long ago. 

Fighting for their bonus: WDTW talked to no less than 9 Emergency Department employees who are either not getting their bonus due to some kind of bureaucratic hurdle or are fighting with HR to properly account for their hours in order to show that they met the bonus requirement. For instance, when employees work overtime and qualify for TASC (Temporary Assigned Schedule Coverage), they have to personally email or call the TASC office to ensure they get credited for that shift. (TASC shifts are extra pay per hour on top of overtime pay.) Failure to notify the TASC office could result in workers not getting the extra cash the hospital promised. Sure, if workers can show the hospital's error, the hospital will eventually pay them. . . if they can prove the hospital’s error.

Many employees are told they’re not getting their bonus due to subtle nuances in the bonus program’s description—the legalese in the online description. Apparently, employees are supposed to verify that some bonus-killing nuance was actually spelled out in the PowerPoints. Some workers are told that due to the specific kind of differential attached to their extra shifts, those shifts don’t “count” as “extra.”  This kind of weaseling is happening right and left. Folks have to do their own calculations to verify they worked the appropriate hours. They have to argue that they didn’t take a lunch this day or that. They have to notify HR that the dates HR had notated the employee as working on his/her time cards are erroneous. 

So the institution that can’t figure out how to retain staff such that they’re begging workers to pick up overtime and telling them they don’t need a union is completely okay requiring the same folks to use advanced algebra to get paid. Promise a benefit, then make it too complicated to get. Hospital gets decent PR and doesn’t have to pay. Win win.

“The amount of work I hare to put into this just to get the pay they promised me is 

 unbelievable” -UCH RN

“I understand their frustrations but as we discussed if the time is not properly recorded, there is nothing payroll can do, and that starts with the employee.” Email from payroll to a UCH unit manager

So the desperate-for-coverage hospital promises bonuses while making requirements complicated and time-consuming for employees. What arrogance! Hospital management is literally begging employees to work overtime and throwing them scraps as incentive, then chiseling the same employees when it comes time to write some checks. How many folks picked up shifts and had to fight for their bonus? How many accepted that their shift didn’t quality and ended up giving the hospital free work?

UCH published a Super Bowl ad which charges companies anywhere from $1M and $7M while also hiring a consulting company to defend against an ongoing employee unionization campaign. How much can management get away with pissing in workers’ mouths before workers stand up and do something about it?  

“We were incentivized to do these things during the holidays when we should have been home with our families, like the executives. However, due to the titanic disparity in pay and decades- long increases in cost of living, many staff members felt almost obligated to take advantage of this opportunity to maybe shine a light on what so far has been two consecutively bleak holiday seasons.” - Anonymous EDT Tech

Managements response to employee complaints has been flailing at best and dismissive at worst. Leaked emails show squabbling between middle management and the payroll department, usually ending with middle management forwarding email chains to individual employees while throwing their hands in the air and giving up. The trend here is clear: employees need to protect themselves at all times from all levels of management. For more information on UCHWU or to join the union, please go to https://www.uchwu.org/contact.

If you have stories about pay discrepancies, information about safety concerns, or any other issues you’d like to be addressed by the WDTW staff, please reach out to contactWDTW@gmail.com, or send us a facebook message @WeDoTheWork. 

University of Colorado Hospital and COVID confusion

“Effective immediately, employees with a POSITIVE Covid test who are Asymptomatic or only have Mild Symptoms may continue to work so long as that employee feels well enough to work.”-UCH Internal Email

Months after mandating vaccinations for their frontline workers, hospitals are now encouraging or even coercing employees, under the threat of punitive action, to come to work while infected with COVID-19. Since the expiration of the federally mandated 80 hours of COVID sick leave, workers have to weigh the options of exhausting their own sick time to recover from the virus or come to work while ill. An Employee with the University of Colorado Health hospital system told WDTW she has no PTO available and had no choice but to come to work while infected with COVID-19 to avoid a loss of income. Her partner is currently using FMLA to recover from hip surgery to repair an injury sustained while working in the same department.

        WDTW obtained an internal email (attached below) from University of Colorado Health and distributed to all staff members (it's quoted above) detailing the parameters by which an infected employee may come to work. While the email does not define exactly what constitutes “mild symptoms,” it does detail that employees should return to work if they’re feeling “symptoms of a runny nose, sore throat, body aches and/or loss of taste or smell unless your symptoms worsen”. While the actual definition of a symptom is the subjective interpretation of a sensation as reported by the patient, this statement gives managers a certain amount of latitude to pressure the employee to come to work, under the threat of punitive measures, despite the employee not feeling well. One CT (computed tomography) technician who spoke to WDTW under the condition of anonymity recounted how her supervisor threatened her with a write up should she miss one more day of work without an approved FMLA request (she spoke to us after her shift, while positive with COVID-19).

        Further confusing the entire front line staff at UCH, this email gently advises its employees that while a negative COVID test is not required to return to work, those employees who chose not to get vaccinated are still required to provide weekly negative tests.

Nearly 1 in 4 people in Colorado are currently COVID positive; many are experiencing their second or third case of the virus (23.32% positivity rate).  In Colorado nearly a quarter of all hospital beds in the state are occupied by a COVID-19 patient, and more than ⅓ of the state's ventilators are being used by a COVID patient; it really begs the question of resource management.

“It is interesting how we’ve shifted from the beginning of the pandemic and having to walk COVID swabs to the laboratory to now being nearly mandated to come to work with the virus.” anonymous UCH EDT

Early in the pandemic, the UCH policy for transporting COVID swabs to the laboratory was to hand-deliver the swabs as opposed to using the pneumatic tube system usually utilized to transport blood or other samples to the lab. However, due to heightened concern over the spread of COVID should one of these tubes rupture in the system, workers were instructed to hand-deliver the samples to the lab. Furthermore, UCH asserts that it is following evidence-based practice with its current infection control guidelines (specifically the return-to-work policy), which flies directly in the face of the CDC’s own recommendation that you can still be contagious after a five-day quarantine. The DNA of this: healthcare workers are being encouraged to come to work while infectious with a deadly disease.

While this behavior is not unique to UCH, it is still leaving frontline staff flummoxed. They enter their workplace walking past posters saying “not all heroes wear capes, some wear masks” only to be told they should come to work with a deadly disease that they will not be compensated for should that disease incapacitate them from working.

With a unionization campaign currently driving titanic momentum at UCH, the University of Colorado Workers United, a branch of the Commercial Workers of America Local 7799, are harnessing this frustration that the institution continues to foment.  Each day the campaign gains new members, new ground, and new energy. All around the country, we’re seeing the strain this virus has put on the current structures of our economy. Government and union leadership find themselves cornered and flailing as the workforce pushes back with walkouts and wildcat strikes forcing leadership into a hard reckoning over their relationship to the current state of affairs.  For more information on UCHWU or to join the union, please go to https://www.uchwu.org/contact.

To reach out to We Do The Work with your stories simply email contactwdtw@gmail.com.

BEGIN EMAIL TEXT

Hello again amazing team!!  We want to continue to keep you all up to date on things that are rapidly changing to meet the needs of our hospitals, our testing centers, our staff and our community.   Please read this email and the enclosed updates and feel free to come to us with any questions!!!

Updates to Employee Testing Guidelines

• Effective immediately, for employees with Mild Symptoms of Covid (see below in Covid Update #100 for details), No symptoms, or a home/work Covid exposure, there is NO testing requirement , or need to call Employee Health/Covid Hotline and the staff member may continue to work if they feel well enough to do so. 

• Employees experiencing Major Symptoms of Covid (see below in Covid Update #100 for details) should not report to work and should notify Charge for an initial missed shift and schedule testing through My Health Connection, oneSource, or the UCHealth app.

• Employees with Covid Vaccination Exemptions will now only need to test once weekly until January 28th or until further guidelines are disseminated.

***As a reminder, if you have tested POSITIVE for Covid, you will not need to be retested for Covid for 90 days, even if symptomatic. 

Updates to the Return-to-Work Guidelines

• Effective immediately, employees with a POSITIVE Covid test who are Asymptomatic or only have Mild Symptoms may continue to work so long as that employee feels well enough to work. 

• Employees experiencing the Major Symptoms outlined in the email below and testing POSITIVE for Covid, should not report to work and should reach out to Matt, Laura, and I via UCHealthMetroDenver-EDNurseManagers@uchealth.org for guidance on return to work. 

Please know that we mean it sincerely when we say that SICK IS SICK.  If you feel ill or in any way unable to work due to illness or injury, we still want you to stay home and prioritize your health and wellness.

We continue to be amazed at the incredible work you all do and the positivity you bring despite the many challenges.

END EMAIL TEXT

Savage US Healthcare: A Money Gusher for the Investor Class - by Merrily Mazza, WDTW Corporate Correspondent

UnitedHealth Group website, October 15, 2021 https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/

By MD Mazza

UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, announced recent earnings on October 15: $4 billion in profit on earnings of $72.3 billion--for just one quarter of 2021! Investors and executives have to be ecstatic. They're the real winners in the dismal US healthcare “market,” a system whose claim to fame is that it's the most expensive in the world. How much actual healthcare—not health insurance/healthcare rationing—could Americans get for $288 billion a year? (And that’s the estimated annual revenue of just one US health insurance company.) Even worse, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company's revenue growth in 2021 came from higher health insurance premiums (premiums rose 12%).

United’s current CEO has a $17 million annual compensation package. The former CEO retired after less than 4 years on the job and got an exit package of two years’ salary and bonuses, probably $40-$50 million. For leaving.

This is what passes for healthcare in America—a giant profit-seeking grifting operation to get a cut of the approximately $4 trillion the US spent on healthcare in just 2020.

UnitedHealth is not now and never has been on a “journey to improve healthcare”? Like other providers in our capitalist healthcare system, it’s on a journey to line executives’ and investors’ pockets.

Meanwhile, working Americans forego healthcare, declare bankruptcy from medical expenses, and pray they never get seriously ill, all while they’re beholden to employers for their health insurance like serfs to a feudal lord. The US healthcare system is straight-out savagery.

A Worker's History of the National Guard

National Guard protecting Hormel profits, 1985 meatpackers strike, Austin, MN

In the buildup to a jury decision in the Derek Chauvin murder trial, Minneapolis residents found themselves living under National Guard military occupation.  Based on social media posts during the trial, many city residents, seeing the Guard through an uber patriotic lens, insisted that the soldiers were a force for good, here to protect residents from possible unrest in the event of an unexpected verdict.  In fact, as is true throughout its history, the Guard was called in to protect property and commercial interests. And, as typically happens, the Guard joined forces with the police to suppress protestors when, in the middle of the Chauvin trial, police killed another unarmed black man. Many connect the Guard to so-called humanitarian efforts in natural disasters (although that effort is checkered as well). In reality, the Guard has a dark, 150-year history of protecting property and business interests at the behest of the ruling class.  The business class, then and now, relies on the power of the state and state violence to enforce its will. 

Today’s National Guard evolved from colonial era militias.  Prior to the Civil War, politicians and  business interests used militias to suppress slaves and annihilate Native Americans.  Militias began morphing into officially titled state National Guard forces after a wave of strikes that started with the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Immediately, the business community recognized the threat and united in calling for military suppression of strikes. At the business community’s behest, the Guard took on a new suppressive role—that of a military trained and equipped industrial police force for the business class. Business owners and the politicians in their pockets called up the Guard for a single purpose: to break strikes and quash the US’s emerging labor movement. So blatant was this class warfare that business and government officials actually debated whether the National Guard or the US Army would take on the role of industrial police force. Further cementing the Guard’s mission, businessmen often served as officers in state militias/Guard units and provided much of the units’ financing.  

Starting with the Civil Rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s, the Guard got another assignment from the business and political classes: quell protests and guard business interests from racial justice and antiwar civilian unrest.

The following list of the Guard’s military attacks on workers and protestors isn’t exhaustive but just a flavor of the Guard’s dark 150-year history

The Guard as industrial police force

State violence, threatened and actual, has been used for hundreds of years to protect corporate profits and private property. The Guard, itself composed of working class enlistees, has become a militarized corporate police force that state governments can unleash on the rest of the working class. Directed by government bodies that are controlled by business interests, the Guard has shot and killed workers and their families, arrested strike leaders, threatened striking workers with state-sanctioned violence, and served as strike-breaking scabs.  During World War I, the military was used to spy on workers and labor organizers. In 1920-21, the government used the Army Air Service to bomb striking mineworkers in the West Virginia coal files. In World War II, the government discussed seizing defense plants to avert or break threatened strikes.  And the government used federal troops as replacement workers in the 1977 New York City postal workers strike and both Guard and federal troops as replacement controllers in the 1981 PATCO strike, which broke the air traffic controllers union. 

Workers will never learn this history in school, but here’s a brief, incomplete list of Guard being used against unions, workers, and the working class. 

• 1877 Great Railroad Strike. Workers wages were cut, and workers struck from Baltimore to St. Louis; state governors called their state militias to break the strike. 46,000 soldiers were called out, and 100 workers were killed

• 1886 Wisconsin Iron Works and Rolling Mill and the 8-hour day. Wisconsin’s governor ordered its state militia to fire on striking workers marching to the mill in support of the 8-hour workday; 7 workers were killed

• 1892 Homestead Steel strike, Homestead, PA. Mill owner Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the union. The state militia was called in to lock out the striking workers, protect scabs, and break the workers’ strike.

• 1912 Lawrence, MA, textile mills. Militias used for strikebreaking in the Lawrence mills.

• 1914 Ludlow Massacre, Colorado. Guard troops, called out by the governor at the request of John D, Rockefeller, burned down a strikers’ tent colony killing 26 people including 2 women and 11 children. A number of the Guardsmen worked as plant guards and so were employees of Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

• 1934 Teamsters strike Minneapolis. Unarmed workers were fired on by local police, and 2 workers were killed. The governor declared martial law and called out the Guard, who raided union headquarters, arrested union leaders, and held them in a stockade at the fairgrounds.

• 1937 auto plant sit-down strike, Flint, MI. The governor called out soldiers to surround the plants but wouldn’t order them to attack. By then, many politicians were elected with labor union support and were more reluctant to use the military against striking workers.

• 1974 independent truckers strike. Soldiers were called up in 11 states including Minnesota to break an independent truckers strike

• 1985 Hormel strike, Austin, MN. The Minnesota Guard was called out to protect scabs and break the strike at the Hormel meatpacking plant. (The Guard was used multiple times, over 50+ years, against striking meatpackers at multiple plants in Minnesota and other states).

Military turns on civilians in civil rights and antiwar protests and uprisings

After World War II, when unions became more politically powerful, and later when the union movement declined due to US deindustrialization and the success of military strike breaking, the rate of labor interventions slowed but didn’t stop. But the Guard got a new target and a new mission beginning with the 1960s civil rights movement. States and business interests tapped the Guard yet again to protect business interests and private property by quelling urban unrest over racial injustice and US wars.  From 1960 to 1971, the Guard was used 260 times to quell urban civil rights and antiwar protests and disturbances.  The underlying problems being protested are, of course, never addressed since that would require systemic, anti-business change.  A few examples.

• 1965 Los Angeles. More than 13,000 Guard troops were called in to quell urban unrest in the Watts section of Los Angeles after a black man was arrested by a white police officer in a DUI traffic stop.

• 1967 Detroit and Newark. Inexperienced national Guard soldiers (with as little as 6 hours of training) and US army divisions were deployed to both Detroit and Newark after uprisings of black citizens. Soldiers killed 9 people in Detroit including a 4-year-old girl.

• 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike. 3800 National Guard soldiers were called out after civil rights leader Martin Luther King agreed to come to Memphis to support striking black sanitation workers. (King was assassinated there.) Now famous pictures show striking black workers marching down Memphis streets wearing I Am A Man signs surrounded by Guard tanks and lines of Guard troops pointing weapons at the marchers.

• 1968 Assassination of Martin Luther King. Guard units were called out for widespread urban unrest in more than 100 US cities after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Wilmington, Delaware, one of those cities, experienced only minor incidents after the assassination. Nevertheless, Delaware’s governor asked the Guard to stay on. It did, for a full year, the longest military occupation of any American city in history.

• 1970 antiwar protest, Kent State University. National Guard fired on antiwar protestors at Kent State University in Ohio, killing 4 students and injuring 9.

• 1992 Los Angeles, acquittal of police in Rodney King beating. The Guard was called in to protect corporate property and curb urban riots after four police officers were acquitted of using excessive force in the arrest and beating of a black man, Rodney King. This beating, like the killing of George Floyd, was also videotaped.

• 1999 WTO Seattle. The Guard was called in to deal with the US’s first ever massive anti-globalization street protests. An estimated 40,000 protestors included labor unions, students, citizens of developing countries, anarchists, environmentalists, and members of and local, national, and international religious and nongovernmental organizations all protested against the World Trade Organization at its international meeting in Seattle. The protestors’ sheer number prevented delegates from getting to the meeting, and a number of WTO events had to be canceled. Police were overwhelmed, and the governor called out two battalions of the Guard. Even so, the WTO conference ended with no agreements thanks to the massive protests. The Seattle police chief resigned, and arrested protestors eventually received a settlement from the city of Seattle after the city was found to have violated protestors’ 4th amendment rights.

• 2005 Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans. The Democratic governor of Louisiana called in the Guard and threatened a shoot-to-kill order for alleged looters—mostly desperate people trying to get food and water—in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane that killed more than 1800 people.

• 2014 Ferguson, MO, police killing of Michael Brown. Heavily militarized police and Guard units were called in to quell protests in the aftermath of the police murder of an unarmed black man.

• 2016 Standing Rock. Guard soldiers were called up to protect Dakota Access Pipeline investors in a militarized standoff with unarmed indigenous water protectors

• 2021 George Floyd murder trial. The Guard was called out in multiple cities including Minneapolis to protect corporate property and quell expected protests.

Today, as always, the Guard is composed of thousands of working class young people who are themselves frontline workers. That said, the Guard itself is a state military force deployed against the working class. Working class soldiers, many who join for college money, to learn skills, to prepare for jobs in law enforcement,  to help in natural disasters, are being ordered to engage in dangerous, violent, often lethal, anti-democratic, anti-worker, anti-civil rights, pro-war, pro-business missions against their own fellow workers. The business and political forces directing the soldiers are far removed from and uninfluenced by the needs and desires of local communities. The underlying problems of racism, poverty, deindustrialization, injustice, corporatism, imperialism, and oppression are never resolved and never intended to be. Instead, the ruling class, with the complicity of politicians, supports and directs a military force of the working class to suppress other working class people and communities.

Guard in tanks following striking sanitation workers, Memphis 1968.

Nurse Fired During Fight for PPE Now Facing Board of Nursing Investigation

Cliff Willmeng, RN of 13 years, Union Steward, and Whistleblower, Has January 7, 2021, Date Set for Union Arbitration: Local and National Defense Campaign Mobilizing Now

Cliff Willmeng, the RN employed at Allina Health’s United Hospital in St Paul, Minnesota, who was fired during workplace struggles for frontline safety and patient care, received notification that showed Allina Health likely reported him to the Minnesota Board of Nursing last week. The Board of Nursing, the state governmental body that issues and maintains licenses for registered nurses, can both censor nurses and revoke nurses’ licenses.

Willlmeng has never been reported to any Board of Nursing during his 13-year nursing career, which spans three states and includes employment in emergency medicine, intensive care, and other nursing specialties. Willmeng views the report as additional retaliation by United Hospital for his role in standing up for workplace and patient safety, an effort reported by state and national media since April 2020. His termination is currently the subject of whistleblower litigation set for trial in Ramsey County on August 23, 2021. At the time of his firing, Willmeng was a union steward for the Minnesota Nursing Association (MNA). He was recently elected to the Board of Directors of MNA.

“Myself, my family, and my coworkers reject all retaliation against frontline healthcare providers, who continue to stand up for our patients’ safety and our own protection. Declining working conditions in our hospitals are straining healthcare staff at the moment of greatest public need during a deadly pandemic. We cannot allow the corporate management of healthcare to triangulate our healthcare providers, and will not lay down when our patients and the community need us the most.”

A defense campaign just launched with local and national support for Willmeng, building up to his union arbitration on January 7 and 8, 2021.

More information:

https://www.frontlinersunited.net/bring-back-cliff

Petition to Support Cliff Willmeng:

https://form.jotform.com/203286265008049?fbclid=IwAR36r-YtHDR1xbKo6DZJzTm0NMR5ftOhPKP5NWOnd6NEDpzYfON7Ar8ZJ_8

Legal Defense Fund:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/cliff-willmeng-legal-defense-fund

Background/Headlines:

https://www.frontlinersunited.net/battle-of-the-scrubs

Emergency Resolution Submitted For Union-Wide Nurse Strike Authorization Vote

St Paul, Minnesota, November 13, 2020: Faced with worsening staffing, dangerous working conditions, coworkers falling ill, and the planned closure of two major hospitals during the COVID 19 pandemic, nurses have submitted an emergency resolution to take a union-wide strike authorization vote in January of 2021. 

The measure was submitted to the MNA Bylaws, Resolutions, and Main Motions Committee. If the Committee agrees that the motion meets the qualifications of an MNA emergency measure, it will go to a full vote of the MNA House of Delegates on November 30, 2020. 

The measure outlines the necessity and reasons for definitive action to protect nurses, patients, and the public’s access to health care during the greatest public health crisis in 100 years. Union nurses and community members have been appealing to hospital administrators since the outbreak of the pandemic for safe PPE and workplace protections. They’ve gotten no significant response. Heading into the 2nd and largest wave of new COVID 19 cases and deaths, M Health Fairview announced the closure of both Bethesda and St Joseph Hospitals in St. Paul. And hospital administrators have informed healthcare workers of plans to increase nurse-to-patient ratios.

The emergency resolution calls for an historic, union-wide, strike authorization vote of MNA’s 22,000 members. If approved by the House of Delegates, the strike authorization vote will take place the first week of January 2021 and will authorize the MNA Board of Directors to call a state-wide strike if conditions, staffing, and public health are not adequately addressed. 

The resolution takes place amid escalating workplace actions by nurses across the United States, nurses who have seen thousands of frontline workers lost to COVID 19. Within the last week, 1500 nurses of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals announced a strike saying they’ve been “pushed to the brink by unsafe staffing that undermines patient safety” and will strike “to protect their patients and themselves.”

If you support the call for a union-wide strike authorization vote, please contact Jodi Lietzau at: Jodi.Lietzau@mnnurses.org, who will forward your comment to the Committee. 

The Measure:

Call For a MNA Union-Wide Strike Authorization Vote 

November 13, 2020

Where As: Working conditions throughout the COVID 19 pandemic have exposed systemic, profound dangers to nurses, patients, and frontline workers across all essential industries

And Where As: These conditions have been exacerbated by hospital decision making that has been routinely unresponsive, dismissive, and conducted by executive administrators who do not share the same risk, who do not experience the harms, and who are not dying of COVID 19 at the rate of RNs nationally

And Where As: Illness, economic deprivation, and work-related fatalities fall with even greater severity upon our nurses of color and the working-class communities we serve 

And Where As: Hospital administrations are driving further harms to the communities we serve through inadequate nurse staffing, unsafe work assignments, and closures of entire hospitals 

And Where As: MNA membership is facing unprecedented injury, financial hardship, layoffs, and life-threatening working conditions

And Where As: Hospital administrations, political leaders, governmental agencies and governing bodies have proven to be systemically unresponsive to the needs of our members and essential workers nationally 

Therefore Be It Resolved: That in order to protect the employment, working conditions, professional nursing standards, and physical safety of our nurses, MNA will convene a strike authorization vote of our full membership during the first week of January, 2021

And Therefore Be It Resolved: That upon passing of the MNA strike authorization vote, the Board of Directors shall be given the authority to announce a union-wide strike should the Board deem it necessary to address the systemic abuse of our members and other frontline workers  

And Therefore Be It Resolved: MNA will seek to coordinate these actions with frontline workforces and unions to build the necessary solidarity and response to defend our members and the communities we serve.

For additional information post questions and comments here or contact the authors of the measure, Cliff Willmeng, Summer Pavon or Mable Fale. 

Joe Biden's Last "Fuck You" - Nyota Uhuru

The one silver lining in this era we find ourselves in is that people are forced to show theri hand and can no longer hide who they are. Even still there are folks who have so much invested in the illusion, lies and misleaders they live vicariously through they will ignore irrefutable truth, cape for and defend those sabotaging black progression and marching black masses over a cliff. This is to be expected. Malcolm warned. Frantz coined it 'cognitive dissonance'. I call them traitors. Malcolm said the only thing worse than death was betrayal. Look around. Look at the condition of our neighborhoods, the violent crime we are subjected to... look our schools, the lack of economic development, the excessive ticketing that it took the DOJ and 2 uprisings to stop and how black misleaders allowed their districts and wards to become blighted warzones... Betrayal by the black misleadership/gatekeeper/overseer class is what led us here.

What is especially sad, is watching grown, educated black men and women deny a 400 year history and a lifetime of lived experience in order delude themselves into believing tokenism, black girl magic and black boy joy are change. Into believing Jim Crow Joe and Kamala Harris are change. Or even a lessor evil... exposes the huge disconnect between the old black guard and the black masses. The 50 and under black vote will not support this ticket. New black media will not support this ticket. ADOS, FBA and B1 will not support this ticket. Not only will Trump win, but  Biden/Harris will result in the smallest number of overall black voters since the civil rights era.

The story isn't that Biden/Harris will fail, it's the number of black misleaders willing to go to bat for Jim Crow Joe and Top Cop Kamala Harris. Black lives don't matter, if they did no self respecting black leader would rally black masses to vote for the coauthor of the 1994 crime bill, a proud segregationist who has nothing but offend black voters while offering nothing in exchange for our votes. No self respecting black leader would rally black masses to support Kamala Harris who inprisoned more black men, fathers, sons, uncles and nephews than any other AG in the history of the State of California... more than any of her white racist predecessors. Marinate on that. 

Black lives don't matter, we already know this. It's all an illusion. A money grab and a play for power by the Dem party, George Soros and the NPIC exploiting the black struggle to sell it. In Ferguson they pushed black men out of the movement, inserted new leaders, black faces they could control to sell the narrative and ultimately change the face from black youth who took to the streets to white progressives and clergy, the people funding BLM. Look at the Portland and Seattle, they no longer need black people, blacks have been pushed out and now #BLMSoWhite, black issues have been put on the back burner and white folks are raging against the machine. 

The protests have turned violent. Y'all see how white folks get when asked to wear a mask, they're brought that same sense of entitlement and privilege into the movement. They're going after black officers, white mobs going to their homes, assaulting them, firing rounds with no regard for black children. All under the guise of black lives mattering. Don't be fooled, this is the same white folks raging against blacks in authority. They see black cops as black first. Only black officers see themselves as blue first. Even their fellow officers see them as black first and we have these black officers out here begging for recognition and validation. 

Chickens are coming home to roost as the puppetmasters and funders of Black Lives Matter are again switching the narrative. Black leaders didn't get the memo and look out of touch and morally corrupt championing a movement that has been exposed as the white progressive activist arm of the Democrat Party. Black activists and protesters, especially those from Ferguson look gullible, naive and foolish organizing under the umbrella of BLM knowing how the org exploited what we started, raped, robbed and pillaged the movement, the community and families for their financial backers/Act Blue before moving on to the next. They co-opted the hashtags #blackgirlmagic and #blackboyjoy to sell it and negros been drinking the koolaid by the gallon every since. 

Negros will cheer Biden/Harris but the fact that it took black elites months of public groveling to get Biden to select a black woman... and when he did he selected a non ados woman of color who locked up more black people than another other prosecutor in the state of California speaks volumes. This is not a win. It's Biden's last fuck you.

RESOLUTION: Political Independence and Power for the Minnesota Nurses Association

The following draft resolution for Minnesota Nurses Association was submitted to official review on July 15th, 2020. The resolution can be changed should unions or Locals other than MNA wish to adopt the measure and build independent rank and file political power. The MNA Delegate conference will be held this fall.

Political Independence and Power for the Minnesota Nurses Association 

July 15, 2020: DRAFT COPY – Discussion to follow 

Political Independence and Power for the Minnesota Nurses Association 

 WHEREAS: The strength of our union is based on an organized, united, and mobilized membership; and

 WHEREAS:  All effective movements historically have been based on building collective and independent power to compel change politically and in the workplace; and 

 WHEREAS: Over decades, organized labor drifted from these principles into attempts to negotiate influence through alliances and gifts to dominant politicians and political parties; and 

 WHEREAS: These strategies have not grown union membership, increased union power in the workplace, weakened corporate influence in health care, addressed racial disparities in any significant way, nor affected the long retreat union labor has endured for decades; and 

 WHEREAS: Corporations have dominant influence within two political parties while working class people currently have no political organization of our own. 

 WHEREAS: The relationship of organized labor to the two dominant political parties has divided our membership, enforced a misplaced perspective that change will come from above, weakened our identification as nurses and workers, and prohibited the formation of a genuine worker’s party; and 

 THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT: Minnesota Nurses Association commits to building independent political power and strengthening membership unity, and 

 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:  As of January 1, 2021, MNA will no longer donate funds to political candidates, political action committees, nor any other funding vehicle associated with the Republican and Democratic Parties.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT: As of of January 1, 2021, MN will not endorse or donate labor or other in-kind services to political candidates, political action committees, or any other funding vehicle associated with the Republican and Democratic Parties or their candidates. 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT: MNA will promote political independence through the Minnesota AFL-CIO and join with workers and community members across the State who are engaged in the same. 

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT: MNA will build our influence in political arenas through organizing, demonstrating, building our own independent candidates, strikes, and crafting laws that build power for union members and the larger working class in health care across Minnesota and the United States. 

Fired ER Nurse Files Whistle Blower Complaint Against Allina Health, Will Run for Union Office

Fired ER Nurse Files Whistle Blower Complaint Against Allina Health, Will Run for Union Office 

“There are warning signs everywhere today for what is described as the “Labor movement”. The fact that United Hospital has been able to fire stewards at will shows that a new model of rank and file led unionism isn’t just necessary, its critical. No litigation can replace the creation of that new model, but today we will begin one effort in the courts and another in the workplaces and community and aim toward building a unionism worthy our times.”

- Cliff Willmeng, RN 

On June 7, 2020, Cliff Willmeng, a former Registered Nurse at United Hospital and union steward of nursing union Minnesota Nurses Association, filed a lawsuit alleging violations of the Minnesota Whistleblower Act, alleging Allina fired him because he reported unsafe working conditions to the hospital, press, the United States Occupational Health and Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”), and the Minnesota Department of Labor. 

Willmeng believes he was terminated after becoming vocal about his safety concerns in late March 2020. Throughout April and May, Willmeng and other United Hospital employees objected to unsafe working conditions in relation to concerns about the transmission and spread of COVID-19, and they requested that United allow them to use hospital-issued scrubs rather than personal uniforms. Willmeng asserts that he filed three OSHA complaints and that he and other frontline employees were featured in press stories in which they demanded the ability to use hospital-issued scrubs to reduce the likelihood COVID-19 would spread. Willmeng alleges that although Allina allowed frontline healthcare workers at other Allina-owned hospitals to wear the scrubs, United Hospital claimed it was a dress code issue. Willmeng believes he was unfairly terminated because shortly after he filed his first OSHA complaint, he began being pulled into formal disciplinary proceedings. Willmeng alleges that United’s managerial employees continued harassing him until his termination on May 8, 2020. 

Amanda Cefalu, Willmeng’s lawyer, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Willmeng alleging Allina has violated the state’s whistleblower and occupational safety laws, which prohibit employers from discharging or discriminating against employees who report violations of the law to their employer. Willmeng is seeking compensation and damages including reinstatement of his position at United Hospital Emergency Department. Willmeng’s lawsuit also alleges that he was discriminated against for asserting his rights under the state’s occupational health and safety laws and for speaking out on behalf of other employees.  

Willmeng stated: “There is no excuse for Allina’s treatment of me and my coworkers as we attempt to protect our patients, our families, and the health of the St. Paul community. We attempted to help the hospital ensure that it was providing employees with a safe place to address the front lines of the pandemic. Instead of working with us, Allina focused on whether wearing scrubs violated the ‘dress code.’ The executives of Allina should not be allowed to harass or harm the courageous frontline healthcare workers at this time of extreme crisis.” 

Alongside of litigation efforts, Willmeng will be running for Board of Directors of MNA and for delegate to the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

The complaint can be viewed at this link: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LNePQDqJ2F7bBawFL-jhWC-oJOP3u3Fm/view?usp=sharing

Orwell in the Age of Covid: Trust Your “Leaders”

CBS Sunday Morning April 12, 2020.

Hospital administrators, despite all evidence of failure, are still steering a profits-first, corporate healthcare system, but now they’re requiring a lot of public relations help to prop up their tarnished images. One of them, twin cities Allina healthcare system CEO Penny Wheeler, recently got a national media spotlight—not surprising given the mainstream media’s role in preserving the corporate and military status quo. (Note: There was no national media follow-up when Allina frontline nurses working with inadequate PPE were disciplined and fired and when they protested Allina and skewered Wheeler and her administrators’ “leadership.”)

On April 12, 2020, CBS Sunday Morning featured a COVID-related lead story, What Kind of Leadership Does Our Nation Need?  Nationally known media anchor Jane Pauley introduced the segment with these words “Deep into a crisis many are comparing to war…” Ancient Ted Koppel then interviewed these three mainstream-media-anointed “national leaders” who he referred to as “a warrior, a doctor and a priest.”

• Following on Pauley’s war analogy, Retired US Army General Stanley McChrystal

• Jesuit priest and president of Fordham University in New York Joseph McShane

• Allina Health system CEO Penny Wheeler, MD

After 19 years of nonstop war, and while the US economy melts down, more than 30 million are now unemployed, deaths spike, underserved, minority populations suffer, and the US private, profit-driven healthcare system implodes, Jane Pauley, Ted Koppel and CBS offered up typical you-can-trust-the-people-at-the-top propaganda.

McChrystal

McChrystal has his own set of problems. He led US forces in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010. After Rolling Stone published an article where the author says McChrystal and his aides mocked then Vice President Biden and other administration officials, McChrystal was recalled to Washington where Obama accepted his resignation. Prior to his Afghanistan appointment, although McChrystal was credited with the death of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, his Zarqawi unit became well known for its interrogation methods, particularly at one camp where the unit was accused of abusing detainees. Some allege that McChrystal also had a part in covering up the Pat Tillman friendly fire incident

The ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (now 19 years long) have cost an estimated $4.4 trillion so far. A probably grossly underestimated 400,000 Afghan and Iraqi civilians have been killed along with 8000 US service members; 20,000 service members have been wounded. And the military is still there.

McChrystal now runs his own consulting firm, a lucrative business for retired generals with government and corporate connections.

McShane

McShane, president of Fordham, offered a few simplistic but kind words on leadership responsibility. He doesn’t have the same baggage—i.e., responsibility for the actual lives of his underlings—as either McChrystal or Wheeler, whose claims to expertise include leading ongoing, decades-long wars-without-end and corporate-run, profits-first failing healthcare systems.

Wheeler

CBS undoubtedly picked Wheeler as their healthcare “leader” for one reason—she’s one of the few US healthcare CEOs who’s a former physician and a woman; her OB/GYN specialty is an extra plus with its earth mother vibe. She left medicine behind years ago to climb the corporate pay ladder to a $3 million 2018 compensation package. Allina Health, like every other US healthcare system, both profit and nonprofit, is a business not a guardian of public health or a community service. Wheeler has said so, quite openly, in multiple published interviews over the last 10 years. For both for-profit and nonprofit healthcare systems, the bottom line drives executive and administrative decision making, now with devastating consequences for patients, communities, and frontline workers. The US healthcare system (the most expensive in the world) has shown itself to be an internationally acknowledged failure and a national disgrace. Americans face both a massive public health crisis and a catastrophic economic meltdown. And yet the mainstream media tells us that one of that failed system’s CEOs is a national “leader.” 

Since the SARS outbreak in 2003, multiple international agencies, US federal and state agencies, and global and US infectious disease experts have warned of a coming pandemic and published preparedness plans and recommendations.  All warned of the potential for massive supply chain disruption, mass unemployment, shortages of equipment including ventilators and PPE, long vaccine lead times, delayed (profit-generating) elective surgeries effecting hospital cash flows, and unnecessary deaths. All were ignored. Frontline workers, months in to the pandemic, are still begging for PPE.

Planning and stockpiling are not profitable—that’s how the capitalist, market-driven system works. Unless a ventilator is hooked up to a paying customer, it’s just a drag on the balance sheet. The same with PPE—it needs to be used so the cost + markup can be quickly passed along to a patient..

During the almost 20-year warning window, Allina, under Wheeler’s leadership, made a $100 million investment in 2018 in 7wire, a Chicago-based venture capital fund. Allina inked a prior $100 million deal with HealthCatalyst in 2015. In March of this year, while Covid was bearing down on the Midwest and it was clear that hospital systems had no stockpiled equipment, Wheeler herself joined the board of New York tech startup Cedar, a company developing healthcare billing software. Outside board members typically get an equity stake, so in the face of a pending catastrophe, she took time our for personal profit-seeking.

Hospitals like Allina’s are now risking frontline workers lives allowing them to work with infected patients with inadequate PPE while cutting staff and benefits to cover their dizzying drop in cash flow after elective surgeries got postponed. Across the country, nurses and other workers are quitting, falling ill, and even dying. And those workers who raise alarms to protect themselves, their families, and their communities are simply fired, as Wheeler’s hospital just did with two frontline nurses. That’s one way to cover the criminal negligence of hospitals and their well-compensated executives.

So to frontline workers risking their health and lives, here are the leadership lessons Wheeler offers to a national audience:

• “My job is to learn from them [employees of Allina] and get barriers that are creating barriers [sic] to their care or their growth out of the way. That’s how I approach leadership.”

• “First [leadership lesson] of all, don’t be in denial of what the true situation was. And get the information from every vantage point you possible can.”

• “The second is learn as much as you can from the people closest to the work. They will help guide your choices and decisions. There’s genius out there that that you need to listen to.”

• “The third is, boy, collaborate as much as you can with others; communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate.

Drivel and lies. In fact, Wheeler and her administrators refused to collaborate with emergency room nurses and other COVID-facing ER staff when staff requested use of hospital scrubs to avoid taking their own contaminated scrubs home to their families. Wheeler insisted on the hierarchical scrubs dressscode and fired an ER nurse over the issue—in a pandemic—resulting in a nurse march and protest from an Allina hosptial to the state capitol. Wheeler, like all good corporatists, follows the Rahm Emanual playbook; never let a crisis go to waste. Under her leadership and in a public health crisis, her healthcare system harasses and fires nurses and engages in union busing. That’s what constitutes a corporate “leader” according to mainstream media.

Allina frontline workers say they are neither consulted nor informed. The information they get from their executive leaders? Wheeler’s and her executives’ Facebook public relations videos intended to calm the public so they show up for medical services.

Allina’s frontline workers, like frontline workers across the country, are ill-equipped, ill-protected, and risking their own lives and health, and that of their families, to treat patients and earn a living. Like all other hospital CEOs and executives, Wheeler and her administrators stockpiled no equipment and apparently never read warning and preparedness reports—or did and ignored them. Her chief operations officer (the person who typically has oversight of the supply chain—acquiring supplies like ventilators and PPE) is a former dietician with an online MBA, a PhD in leadership, and a $1 million+ compensation package. The president of two Allina hospitals, the woman who recently fired two nurses, has an undergraduate degree in business, an online MHA (masters in healthcare administration), and a $1 million+ compensation package.  In a Zoom interview she gave with a Minnesota state rep as COVID was barreling toward Minnesota, she made this disingenuous statement: “Who could have dreamt that this could have happened?”

Healthcare leaders? Wheeler and her administrators, like so many other healthcare executives, are self-serving opportunists. They help themselves not public health. It’s long past time for a new healthcare system that puts workers and communities first.

Are nonprofit hospitals really nonprofit? Answer: No

US hospitals systems (the majority of them “nonprofits”) are battlefronts in the COVID-19 fight. We’ve already examined hospitals’ abysmal record: hospital administrators failed to prepare for a pandemic predicted by state, federal, and international government agencies and infectious disease experts since the 2003 SARS outbreak. These agencies and experts not only warned about likely pandemics, they wrote preparedness plans and delineated the critical failure points should healthcare systems and governmental bodies fail to prepare. In our profits-first healthcare system, hospitals didn’t stockpile equipment. It turns out states didn’t either. And states never mandated that hospitals stockpile, nor did they check to see what the hospitals were doing, if anything. The federal government didn’t check on states and hospital systems and let its own stockpile diminish and degrade. Failure all around.

Studies say that hospitals are the largest individual contributors to US healthcare costs and that Americans spend over $1 trillion a year at hospitals, about a third of the US annual healthcare spending. We saw in our previous We Do the Work report that hospitals were reported to be the 2nd most profitable industry in the US, just behind #1, commercial banking. Hospital systems have been consolidating for years, giving patients fewer choices (in rural areas, pretty much no choice) and hospitals the ability to raise prices at will.  Ironically, most of these profitable hospitals are “nonprofits,” a status that comes with huge benefits for hospital executives’ compensation packages and hospitals’ bottom lines, but not for patients and not for hospitals’ frontline workers treating COVID patients.

US hospitals: profit, nonprofit and government-owned/run

The vast majority of US community hospitals (56%) are nonprofits. Only 25% are for-profit (that is, they’re owned by investors just like GM and Walmart and structured to benefit these investors via dividends, appreciating stock prices, and the like). And 19% are owned by state and local governments. The federal government also owns and runs hospitals—for example, the VA system.

In more urban areas like Minneapolis/St. Paul, the major hospitals systems are typically structured as nonprofits as is true of Allina, HealthPartners, M Health Fairview, and the Mayo Clinic.

Nonprofit hospitals as “charities”

Many nonprofit hospitals started life as religious institutions, part of a church or religious order. You’ll see these histories hyped in hospitals’ marketing pieces—how nuns started the first hospital in the 1800s, typically treating working class and indigent patients. The nuns are long gone as are the days of providing free care to the poor and suffering. These hospitals are now profit-generating machines staffed by well-compensated professional administrators with business backgrounds and  free-market ideology.  They’re often the biggest employer in their cities and generate revenue exceeding that of the local municipal government. (Even so, one big, successful nonprofit hospital system in the Midwest and West continually refers to its system as “our ministry.”)

Nonprofit hospitals are structured as public charities. Their charitable mission is to provide the latest medical technology and affordable healthcare to the communities they serve. Any profits they make (what’s left over after subtracting their expenses from their revenues) are supposed to be invested in their charitable mission. Unlike for-profit hospitals, nonprofits have no investors looking for dividends or an appreciating stock price. That said, both nonprofit and for-profit hospitals are private corporations. They are not publicly owned like government-run hospitals, and the public has no say in how they operate, what they charge, what care they provide, and what they do with their profits.

The benefit of nonprofit status? simple: Nonprofit hospitals don’t pay taxes

Nonprofit hospitals are 501(c)3 corporations under the IRS code, which gives them a huge, money-saving special privilege. They don’t pay:

• Local property tax (the money that funds public schools)

• Federal and state corporate income tax

• State and local sales and use taxes (the majority of states, including Minnesota, exempt hospitals from sales tax; local sales tax is a major revenue stream for city governments)

By avoiding property tax payments to the county or city where their hospitals are located, nonprofit hospitals shift the financial burden for public schools and other essential services and infrastructure onto individual citizens (both homeowners and renters) and small business owners, who end up paying more to cover the share that the nonprofit hospitals duck.

And more. Nonprofit hospitals can:

• Accept charitable donations, which are tax-exempt to the donor (donors are more likely to give if they can deduct their contributions)

• Borrow money by issuing tax-exempt bonds (tax-exempt bonds carry a lower interest rate so the hospital/borrower pays less in interest)

• Buy their pharmaceuticals at a discount through a federal program if they treat large numbers of indigent patients

Originally, hospitals got tax-exempt status because they were affiliated with religious institutions and served some charitable purpose not necessarily related to medical care. In 1956, the IRS implemented the “charity care” standard; it required hospitals to offer free care to patients unable to pay in order to qualify as a tax-exempt entity.

““Not-for-profit hospitals don’t price any less aggressively than for-profits. We subsidize not-for-profits to the tune of $30 billion annually, in the form of tax exemptions, and we have to ask what that money is getting us.”
https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2017/04/25/the-fairy-tale-of-a-non-profit-hospital/”



What are nonprofit hospitals supposed to provide in exchange?

The IRS says they’re supposed to provide “community benefit” and charity care for the underserved, uninsured, and underinsured who would otherwise need government help. (Note that for-profit hospitals also provide charity care.)

Do they provide it?

Since 2010, as part of affordable care act, nonprofit hospitals have to list on their annual 990 tax forms how much “money-losing” care they’re dispensing to these populations and how they calculate that number. They also have to list what they’ve done, for free, to better their communities Now investigative reporters, researchers, and consumer advocates have a way to assess whether these nonprofit hospitals deserve their huge tax breaks.  Recent research shows that many are providing nowhere near the amount of charity care and community benefit that would justify the value of their tax exemption. One study estimated that “only 25% of nonprofits provide enough total charity to warrant their tax exemption, and only 20% of nonprofits provide enough incremental charity care beyond what for-profits provide to justify their tax exemption.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5813653/

And more

Even worse, on their IRS 990 forms, when nonprofit hospitals calculate the amount of charitable healthcare they gave away in a tax year, they use chargemaster prices, made up prices that nobody actually pays that are many times higher than what commercial insurance or Medicare would pay for the same service or procedure. You can see this chargemaster price on your medical bills, less some “adjustment,” less what your insurance company actually paid, and less your co-pay if any. It’s not only shocking, but makes your bill pretty much incomprehensible. Because nonprofits can make the baseline price up, they can inflate how much they “give back” to the community as much as they want. For example, suppose they evaluate a patient with chest pain, and the allowable Medicare amount for that service is $3600. Rather than use the same $3600 for an uninsured patient and list $3600 in charitable care, the hospital can use the chargemaster rate, say $25,000, and then list an inflated $25,000 in uncompensated care, almost 7 times higher than actual cost of the care the hospital provided. Nonprofits are allowed to do the same for Medicaid patients (but not Medicare patients) and other patients using means-tested healthcare programs. If Medicaid reimburses just $2500 for the same service, rather than listing $1000 in uncompensated (unreimbursed) charitable care ($3500 cost of care - $2500 Medicaid reimbursement), the hospital uses the chargemaster rate and lists an inflated $22,500 ($25,000-$2500).

The IRS reporting requirement is so lax that nonprofit hospitals can get away with inflating the amount of their “charitable” care on IRS reporting to retain their enormous tax advantage.

Because they don’t pay property taxes or corporate income taxes on money left over after paying expenses, nonprofit hospitals end up with a tax-free surplus that they don’t call a profit even thought it is. And this all works because…

nonprofit and for-profit hospital corporations don’t disclose the real prices actually paid by their patients.

So what do nonprofit hospitals do with their surplus?

They pay their executives and administrators a lot of money, more than for-profit hospitals. They buy up other local hospitals and clinics to eliminate competitors and increase their market share, allowing them to raise prices. They also use the money to buy up independent medical practices to turn independent doctors into employed physicians (after the physicians sign a non-complete clause). They construct new facilities. Added to the monetary benefit, their executives get to mingle with other local executives and influential politicians. And they use lobbyists or membership in lobbying trade organizations like the American Hospital Association to keep the game going with help from Washington.

Nearly half of the CEOs of America’s leading nonprofit health systems last year had salaries that exceeded $2.5 million. The highest paid, the top executive, at Banner Health in Phoenix, got $21.6 million.

Here’s data for the top nonnprofit organizations in Minnesota. Ranked by revenue, hospitals top the list (#3 on the list, not included, is health insurer Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota). Note the CEO salaries and for organizations treated as “charities,”

The takeaway

Do nonprofit hospitals provide healthcare services at lower cost that for-profit systems?  How would anyone know? Pricing is so opaque that the only way to know for sure is if hospitals actually published the prices they charge and stopped the chargemaster boondoggle. Moreover, insured patients have little choice anyway—most end end up having to use the providers and hospitals linked to their healthcare insurer. 

Do nonprofits warrant the hefty tax advantages they get and that cost citizens extra tax outlays to cover the shortfall for critical public services? No.

It’s time for Americans to demand that so-called nonprofit hospitals stop paying executives outsize pay packages and instead actually pay back communities what they’re owed and have been scammed out of by nonprofits’ tax avoidance.

Next up in We Do the Work Series

Hospital administrators: despite all evidence of failure, still steering a profits-first, corporate healthcare system in a public health crisis.

The Healthcare Industry and Its Cut-throat Drive for Profits: Medicine Is a Profession, but Healthcare Is Big Business

While most Americans see hospitals as critical hubs for patient care, in reality they operate as profit-driven assembly lines. Every patient who walks through the door and every procedure has an assigned dollar amount. Hospitals are big business with big profits to match.

The Healthcare industry: How big a business?

The healthcare industry consists of business corporations (“nonprofit” hospitals and other “nonprofit” providers are business corporations) that provide medical services, manufacture medical equipment or drugs, provide medical insurance, or otherwise facilitate the provision of curative, preventative, rehabilitative, and palliative healthcare to patients.

The US healthcare industry is just that, an industry—an economic force, big business first and foremost, a way to make money just like a manufacturing plant, restaurant chain, consulting or investment firm, or Walmart.

Various financial services create their rankings a bit differently depending on what businesses they include in a business sector. That said, healthcare ranks near the top of the US foodchain in both revenue (what comes in the door) and profits (what’s left over after companies pay their expenses) in pretty much every industry analysis. Here’s one revenue ranking showing healthcare as the 5th largest revenue-producing industry in the US economy.

Largest US industries ranked by revenue, 2019

1. Real Estate

2. Professional and business services

3. State and local governments

4.  Finance and Insurance

5. Healthcare and social assistance (social assistance is small part)

Here’s a ranking by profitability (revenue less expenses) showing the most profitable US industries (this list shows subsets of the healthcare industry)

Total US healthcare spending

Total US healthcare spending projected for 2019 (final numbers are not available):

$3.82 Trillion!

This amount is larger than the gross domestic product (GDPs) of Brazil, the UK, Mexico, Spain, and Canada.

Here’s how the $3.82 trillion spend breaks down in percent accounted for by each healthcare subset.

• 32.8% Hospital Care

• 26.5% Professional Services (physicians, dentists, all other healthcare professionals)

• 12.8% Retail Medical Products (prescription drugs and other medical products)

• 5.2% Residential and Personal Care

• 6.6% Private Health Insurance Administration

• 4.7% Nursing Care Facilities and Continuing Care Retirement Communities

• 2.8% Home Healthcare

• 2.4% Government Public Health Activities

• 1.3% Government Administration

• 1.5% Research

And more: U.S. healthcare expenses are projected to grow 56% over the nine-year period 2019 to 2027, reaching an expected $6 trillion in 2027.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) projects that healthcare costs in 2027 will comprise about 19 percent of the country’s GDP. Relative to the size of the economy, healthcare costs have increased dramatically over the past few decades, from just 5 percent of GDP in 1960.

US Healthcare spending per person

How does US healthcare spending break down per capita (per person)?

 Healthcare expenditures:

·         $10,586 per person in 2018

·         $11,500 per person projected for 2019

·         $17,000 per person projected for 2027

In fact, the US has the most expensive healthcare system in the world. US residents spend almost twice as much per person on healthcare as every other developed country and for similar or worse outcomes.

Why are US healthcare costs so much higher?

 A January 2019 study on the website of John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath lays it at this doorstep:

““The United States, on a per capita basis, spends much more on health care than other developed countries; the chief reason is not greater health care utilization, but higher prices, according to a study from a team led by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researcher.”
The paper appears in the January issue of Health Affairs.
”

Who benefits from higher prices?  The profit-seekers and administrators of the overpriced US healthcare system.

Love or Money? 

On April 12, 2020, Penny Wheeler, CEO of twin cities’ Allina Health, appeared on a segment of CBS Sunday Morning entitled What American Needs from Its Leaders during a Crisis. She said that a former mentor told her that healthcare is more about love.  That may be comforting to the public, especially in a global pandemic (the caring angle shows up in every provider’s marketing pieces). But no. Healthcare isn’t about love. It’s about money.

 

Next

Next installments will discuss US hospital systems, particularly the “nonprofit” hospitals, healthcare’s business focus and how that focus failed public health and healthcare workers in a pandemic, and the handsome compensation of hospital administrators and others.

It’s Bigger Than Scrubs – My Termination From United Hospital ER

It’s Bigger Than Scrubs – My Termination From United Hospital ER, A Hospital of the Allina Health System

St Paul Minnesota 

5/11/2020

During the course of my May 8, 2020, shift, I was brought into two meetings with managers of United Hospital’s Emergency Room and two representatives from its Human Relations department. By the end of the second meeting, I was informed that I was terminated from employment for the following reason, as stated by United Hospital: 

“Cliff’s conduct on April 24th, 2020 violated the Hospital policies and expectations, including the Respectful Workplace policy and the Code of Conduct. Cliff’s conduct on May 8, 2020 violated Hospital policy and expectations regarding uniforms and hospital scrubs, as well as his duty to follow the directions of his leader. Each incident constitutes an independent ground warranting termination of employment. As such, Cliff’s employment is being terminated effective immediately.”

Moving beyond the talking points of Allina Health, let me provide some context. For months, working conditions, patient safety, public health, and the rights of union members have been degraded and placed at risk by Allina hospital administration’s policies, behavior, and egregious lack of preparation for a global pandemic. This is not a matter of opinion or perspective but documented fact, evidenced by hundreds of OSHA complaints, failing infection protocols, communications of frontline healthcare workers, and hospital administration’s ongoing acts of intimidation, harassment, and threats to our professional standing. 

Hospital administrators placed profits and executive compensation over protection of employees, year after year. The resulting failure and disorganization have pushed workplace safety, nursing practice, public health, and our rights as workers to a breaking point.

Frontline workers in disparate industries, workplaces, and healthcare settings are not tolerating these developments, and United Hospital is no exception. On a national scale, we rank and file workers are beginning to stand up for ourselves and reject the catastrophic role of management and the executive class. As we reject the decisions and power of our superiors in this life-and-death scenario, we are being harassed and punished to remind us both who is in command and what actions they are willing to take to subject us to that command, no matter how costly or dangerous to us or to the public.  

I reported workplace safety concerns to United Hospital because I believed the hospital was violating the law and our union contract. I reported my concerns on behalf of myself, my family, my coworkers, and the community. When I was harassed and retaliated against for reporting these concerns, I was fired. Workers throughout the hospital are experiencing the same type of daily managerial harassment, threats, and abuse that I did. It’s a paradigm that sets power against morality and the fundamental rights of frontline workers and the public we serve. 

I am a union steward. This means that I am a frontline RN with the additional role of defending our union contract and the principles and practices it articulates. I do not get paid for being a steward, yet it’s a role that I have played in three unions and two industries in my lifetime. Among my responsibilities as a steward is looking out for the health care safety of my coworkers and patients. For the last two months, I have carried out that role by advocating for protective measures designed for the safety of both patients and public. I have called attention to specific and general policies and practices that risk the lives of many. I have sent ongoing communications and concerns to management. I have filed complaints with OSHA, which is currently in the process of an investigation of United Hospital. I have reached out to United’s Emergency Room (ER) Manager and Director as well as the hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), President Sarah Criger, and Allina CEO Penny Wheeler to reporting unsafe work and nursing practice, and a state of ongoing intimidation of staff. I’ve been met with silence, misdirection, or outright hostility. 

The more forceful my advocacy for patient and workplace safety, the more aggressive hospital management has become with me. They have called me unannounced at my home and lied about the potential for disciplinary action against me. They have shadowed me and my coworkers as we perform patient care in working conditions that are nothing short of life-threatening. They have confronted me on the ER floor and told me that I could not “conduct union activity” when I am speaking with my coworkers about union rights. They have persecuted me for basic infection prevention measures and punished me with discipline for pointing out ongoing workplace harassment conducted by hospital management. They have made credible threats to my career, which is what my family relies on for basic income and for access to the medical care that we need. On Friday, May 8, 2020, they made good on those threats and fired me from my position at United Hospital ER. 

Allina has issued a response to my firing that accurately states, “Allina’s employees are the foundation of our organization. Without them we would not be able to serve the health care needs of our communities.” But Allina’s statement purposely misrepresents my termination by writing that I was, “…violating(ing) hospital policies designed to protect our patients and staff.” Nothing could be further from the truth at this late stage of a global crisis exacerbated by corporate disorganization and mismanagement. This level of arrogance and casual disregard for the experience of frontline workers and the public we serve is something I have never experienced in over 35 years in the US workforce. Allina is not taking all available actions to protect frontline workers, patients, and the community. 

For these and additional reasons, I have continued to organize with frontline workers in United Hospital and the greater public. I am being represented by my personal attorney, Amanda Cefalu, and the Minnesota Nurses Association. I have filed grievances about my treatment with Allina Health and will be filing additional charges of Unfair Labor Practices for myself and my coworkers. I was notified and have made administrators at United Hospital aware that my case has been referred to the discrimination unit of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. 

As I have suggested, this is bigger than scrubs. 

I would like to close by restating unequivocally my loyalty to my coworkers, to the people we serve, and to the working class people that are the fundamental force of all humanity. Our task, contrary to the corporate coercion so desperate to keep us in a state of subjugation, is to organize, envision, and struggle, and to craft our own power during this moment of global crisis. If we do it correctly, we have the potential to build healthcare that is powered by people and that opens more doors and potential than this statement has time to address. This goal will inform our actions and intentions from this point on. 

Cliff Willmeng, RN

Steward, MNA 

- Cliff Willmeng has filed grievances around his discipline and will is demanding reinstatement in his employment at United Hospital with back pay. He will be pursuing Unfair Labor Practices charges, whistler blower violations, and corrective action for retaliation. He retains his MNA union membership and steward status and will be acting in that capacity and expanding the organizing with other frontline workers.

Some things you can help with:

·         Keep getting on the Twitter and FB pages of Allina and United Hospital and management and let them know how you’re feeling (you’re doing amazing with this).

·         Contact St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and call on him to issue a mayoral decree that would complete hospitals to provide scrubs, foot protection, and daily n95s for all hospital staff.

·         Build networks of frontline staff you know to organize our voice and collective action. What does a movement that finally builds power from below look like to you?

#BringBackCliff

St Paul city council and mayor Melvin Carter

Councilmember Rebecca Noecker, St. Paul City Council Ward 2 https://www.facebook.com/ward4stp
https://www.facebook.com/CouncilWard3

https://www.facebook.com/StPaulWard5/

https://www.facebook.com/NelsieYangWard6/

https://www.facebook.com/#!/Ward1Office/

https://www.facebook.com/stpaulward7/

https://www.facebook.com/MayorMelvinCarter/

United Hospital and Allina facebook pages
https://www.facebook.com/UnitedHospital/ https://www.facebook.com/Allina/

Minnesota Nurses Association, Exec director Rose Roach and President Mary Turner

https://www.facebook.com/rose.roach

https://www.facebook.com/mary.c.turner.39

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
https://www.facebook.com/GovTimWalz/

Twitter pages

Allina CEO:   @pennywheelermd

Allina Health: @allinahealth

MN Governor Walz: @govtimwalz

St Paul Mayor Carter:  @melvincarter3

Minnesota Nurses Association exec director: @roachrose

Grievance Details Violations of Contract, OSHA, Nursing Practice Act in Hospital Scrubs Battle

Grievance, 4/22/2020

Facility: United Hospital

Work location: Emergency Department

Name of Grievant: Clifton Willmeng

Date of Disciplinary Meeting: April 15, 2020

Job Title: RN

Supervisor’s name: Kelly Johnson 

To Jim McGlade, and All Concerned Parties: 

Whereas the senior administration of Allina United Hospital failed to appropriately prepare for global pandemic, despite years of warnings and preparedness recommendations from state, national, and global scientific communities (including CDC, HHS, OSHA, NIH, the Defense Department, US General Accountability Office, two presidential administrations, Minnesota Department of Health, and the WHO ( World Health Organization)), for reasons of personal and public health frontline hospital staff have taken independent initiative by calling attention to and modifying unsafe practice to protect our own health, the health of the patients we serve, and the health of the larger public community.

This activity, forced upon frontline staff by the above conditions, is now being exploited by hospital management via harassment of staff through coercion, intimidation, harassment, and accelerating disciplinary actions intended to discourage protected concerted activity. These actions violate the MNA collective bargaining agreement, the Minnesota Nursing Practice Act, OSHA workplace standards, Section 7 of the NLRA, and the foundational principles of nursing itself. 

Moreover, it is indisputable that healthcare workers, and nurses in particular, are at extreme risk for contracting COVID-19 (see, e.g., CDC report finding 9,000 COVID-19 cases amongst healthcare workers even though “the figures in the report should be considered on the lower end since many cases have likely gone ‘unidentified or unreported.’” This fact is even more relevant in light of the inadequate PPE and infection control measures provided by employer Allina Health.

These issues have gone unresolved after numerous conversations and/or emails to ED Manager Kelly Johnson, ED Director Eric Johnson, CNO Janet Pestle, President Sara Criger, and Hospital Division Regional Quality Director Cindy Larson. 

Relevant to this I bring your attention to the disciplinary proceedings that are ongoing against myself and submit this Step 1 grievance pursuant to Section 25 of the collective bargaining agreement executed between MNA and United Hospital 9 (“CBA”).

On April 15th, 2020 I was given a verbal warning for alleged violation of Allina uniform policy and Use of Personal Electronic Device policy. We will address the uniform policy first and then turn to the social media policy. 

ALLEGED VIOLATION OF UNIFORM POLICY 

On multiple occasions, I followed the employer’s uniform policy by changing out of my personal scrubs into hospital-supplied scrubs upon a reasonable belief that my personal scrubs had been spoiled by “potentially infectious materials” per Allina’s uniform policy (to wit: COVID-19). The employer insisted on escalating to discipline insofar as it did not believe non-visible COVID-19 particles were “potentially infectious materials.” To wit:

Part 1: Violations of the Contract Agreement Between United Hospital and Minnesota Nurses Association 

The verbal warning I received for an alleged violation of Uniform Policy violates the just cause as described in Section 17 of the contract agreement between United Hospital and Minnesota Nurses Association: Discipline 

- The investigation was not “Fair and objective,” in fact there was no investigation at all.

- The employer has not applied the rules and discipline even handedly and without discrimination and applied these rules disparately; for example, several other Emergency Departments within the Allina system wear hospital-supplied scrubs as a matter of course

The discipline I received for an alleged violation of Uniform Policy violates the Section 20 of the contract agreement between United Hospital and Minnesota Nurses Association: Professional Nursing Practice

- Under subsection (a), Practice Philosophy, the alleged violation contradicts the understanding that, “There is no substitute for professional judgment.” Professional judgment relating to containing a known pathogen and its potential to spread on surfaces such as personal scrubs is globally understood. In donning hospital- provided scrub clothes, we are exercising profession judgement as registered nurses. 

- Subsection (a) states that, “All decisions to delegate nursing care must be based on the safety and welfare of the client”. Compelling registered nurses and other hospital staff who are routinely exposed to infectious materials to wear personal scrubs risks potential risks spread of viral contamination that is potentially fatal or permanently disabling to hospital staff, the patients, and public health. 

Subsection (d), Reporting of Errors. Forcing staff to use personal scrubs is an error of basic infection prevention. Through the alleged violation, United management is punishing and harassing me for:

1. Identifying errors 

2. Focusing on understanding what caused the error

3. Implementing changes to prevent recurrences

4. Limiting discipline only to misconduct or impairment.

In this instance, nurses such as myself are being penalized for following the nursing process, basic infection control measures, and utilizing their independent judgment. 

The alleged violation of “Uniform Policy” violates Section 22 of the contract agreement between United Hospital and Minnesota Nurses Association: Health and Safety 

The alleged violation contradictions the following subsections of Section 22:

(a) Safety Policy

(b) Equipment and Facilities 

(g) Biological Hazards/Agents 

(n) Which states, “The hospital will develop a plan and guidelines to reduce the risk of exposure and manage the post-exposure treatment for infectious disease. The hospital and MNA will meet to review the plan and guidelines, and to discuss and identify concerns with plan content for consideration to be included in the plan and guidelines,”

In addition to these violations of the contact, the scrubs policy itself, or “Hospital-wide Policy: Scrub Clothes Reference # UTD-Admin-064 was misrepresented to me by ED manager Kelly Johnson. She told me that I am, “…only able to change into hospital issued scrubs when your (my) scrubs become visibly contaminated.” In truth the policy says nothing of this sort. Instead, Section 3 actually is titled, “Uniforms Spoiled with Blood or Other Potentially Infectious Materials”. I raised the fact that viruses are not visible in the meeting. It did not cause any reflection in Manager Kelly Johnson, ED Director Eric Johnson, nor the HR representative Jennifer Gran. I was therefore erroneously issued a verbal warning on this basis as well, which is a clear violation of the contract. 

The fact that COVID 19 is an infectious material should be obvious and apply to the Scrub Clothes policy for any hospital worker with potential to encounter contamination in United Hospital. 

Finally, I am aware that the punishment for wearing hospital scrubs is arbitrary in nature. Other emergency departments in the Allina system have been offered hospital issued scrubs and are using them right now. 

Part 2: Failure to offer hospital issued scrubs violates sections of the Minnesota Nursing Practice Act 

Is has been shown that United Hospital failed systemically to prepare for pandemic. Exacerbating this problem is the punishment of myself for carrying out the basic premises of safe patient care and infection prevention included in nursing practice, and which are detailed in Section 148.261: Grounds For Disciplinary Action. 

Because the use of personal scrubs poses a clear risk for the spread of viral contamination, nurses are risking the following sections of 148.261:

(6) Engaging in unprofessional conduct, including, but not limited to, a departure from or failure to conform to board rules of professional or practical nursing practice that interpret the statutory definition of professional or practical nursing as well as provide criteria for violations of the statutes, or, if no rule exists, to the minimal standards of acceptable and prevailing professional or practical nursing practice, or any nursing practice that may create unnecessary danger to a patient's life, health, or safety. Actual injury to a patient need not be established under this clause.

(8) Delegating or accepting the delegation of a nursing function or a prescribed health care function when the delegation or acceptance could reasonably be expected to result in unsafe or ineffective patient care.

(11) Engaging in any unethical conduct, including, but not limited to, conduct likely to deceive, defraud, or harm the public, or demonstrating a willful or careless disregard for the health, welfare, or safety of a patient. Actual injury need not be established under this clause.

In other words, causing an increased risk to my patients and community via unsafe infection control measures constitutes unsafe nursing practice which is punishable by the Minnesota Nurse Practice Act. Conversely, nurse management direction to so contaminate the public via sole use of personal scrubs may also be such a violation. 

Part 3: Refusing Hospital Issued Scrubs Violates OSHA Standards 

Two OSHA complaints have been filed by myself for unsafe working conditions. These complaints are open and have provoked additional investigation around my disciplinary proceedings and have been referred to the discrimination unit of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry for further evaluation. Discrimination, harassment, and intimidation of workers is a second matter which is not detailed within the course of this grievance and will be addressed later or in another forum. 

 Prior to my verbal warning, I have made it clear in my communications with management, both verbally and in emails, that it is my position that United leadership is breaking OSHA guidelines for scrubs not adequately protected from OPIM contamination. The gowns we are provided in COVID positive or COVID rule out rooms do not cover our lower legs and open in the back. Therefore, in wearing the scrubs I am acting consistently with the law and employee protections set forth by OSHA. Being disciplined for doing so cannot be supported by just cause and therefore violates the contract. 

Please see OSHA interpretations below:

Question 6: Is it permissible for employees to launder personal protective equipment like scrubs or other clothing worn next to the skin at home?

OSHA Reply 6: In your inquiry, you correctly note that it is unacceptable for contaminated PPE to be laundered at home by employees. However, employees' uniforms or scrubs which are usually worn in a manner similar to street clothes are generally not intended to be PPE and are, therefore, not expected to be contaminated with blood or OPIM. These would not need to be handled in the same manner as contaminated laundry or contaminated PPE unless the uniforms or scrubs have not been properly protected and become contaminated. 

These errors create unsafe working conditions due to viral contamination on personal scrubs and shoes. This has been raised repeatedly with hospital management and Hospital Division Regional Quality Director Cindy Larson. To date we are not being offered scrubs nor protection for foot ware. Discipline for an alleged dress code violation, when in fact, I am engaging in actions which are required to protect my health and safety, and which are consistent with OSHA regulations cannot form the basis for a just cause determination. The verbal warning must be rescinded and removed from my personnel file.

ALLEGED VIOLATION OF PERSONAL ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT POLICY 

I am being singled out by ED Manager Kelly Johnson, ED Director Eric Johnson, and HR Representative Jennifer Gran for alleged violation of “Use of Personal Electronic Equipment”. The disciplinary proceedings I am being subjected to, the surveillance of my social media pages, and the ongoing harassment of myself by hospital management violate just cause for discipline. 

The harassment on this basis began on a 22 minute unsolicited phone call from ED Director Eric Johnson, Jenifer Gran, and Hospital Division Regional Quality Director Cindy Larson after I video recorded, as is my right in Minnesota, a phone call I had placed to United CNO Janet Pestle. The subject of the phone call was the need for hospital issued scrubs for health care workers, which she told me, “Are not indicated”. 

The phone call to me ended with ED Director Eric Johnson demanding that I, “Take down the video!” multiple times with raised voice. Cindy Larson told me that during the same call that hospital scrubs, “Aren’t indicated”, because “COVID isn’t really viable” on scrubs. Given the contradictory scientific assertions and the escalating tone of Eric Johnson I felt too uncomfortable continuing the call at that point and hung up. 

Since that time my use of personal social media and electronic equipment at United has been the subject of ongoing harassment and intimidation. There are no other employees being subjected to this targeted intimidation and discipline. In fact, ER Manager Kelly Johnson posted a photo of herself and employees in the patient drop off area of United Hospital’s emergency department on March 25 of 2020. (Included here.) On April 21st, 2020. The Allina Facebook page posted numerous photos of employees that would appear to violate the same policy I am being disciplined for. (The screenshot of that post is also included below. One of the photos includes myself.)

During my April 15th meeting with Eric Johnson and Kelly Johnson I requested examples of my violations of personal electronic equipment from Eric Johnson, which he refused to provide me. When I asked him how he was obtaining evidence of my violation of policy, he informed me, “People are sending it to me.” I asked who was sending him evidence of my violations and he refused to tell me. I asked him how he was receiving evidence of my violations and he refused to tell me. I asked HR representative Jennifer Gran who from United Hospital was scrutinizing my social media and she responded, “I am not going to answer that question.” 

All of this indicates I am being watched by people of whom I am not allowed to know and punished for violations that have never been concretely shared with me. 

CONCLUSIONS AND REMEDIES 

 I will reaffirm that United Hospital entered the COVID 19 pandemic with egregious levels of unpreparedness after ignoring advanced warnings that now pose a harmful or fatal risk to staff, patients, and public health. Because of the mismanagement of this crisis, hospital workers including myself, have been forced to compensate for confused and unprepared administrators to protect ourselves, our coworkers, the patients we care for, and the larger public. For these actions we are being unjustly harassed and punished through targeted intimidation, surveillance, and disciplinary action. 

To begin to remedy these damaging, unjust and dangerous acts, I demand the following:

1. An immediate end to all disciplinary meetings relating to hospital scrub clothes for myself and all hospital workers. 

2. An email to be sent immediately to all hospital employees from Hospital President Sara Criger acknowledging that COVID 19 is a contagious pathogen that can be spread on personal scrubs and foot ware that additionally acknowledges that inadequate attention has been given to this fact. 

3. A second email from ED Manager Kelly Johnson and ED Director Eric Johnson to be immediately sent to all emergency department staff apologizing for their actions regarding the issue of hospital-provided scrub clothes. This email will specifically apologize for causing ED staff stress, loss of sleep, fear, and concern for their professional standing as well as acknowledging that COVID 19 is a contagious pathogen that can be spread on personal scrubs and foot ware. 

4. All disciplinary actions relating to alleged violations of the uniform policy, dress code, or scrub code will be immediately and permanently stricken from my personal file and the files of all United Hospital employees. 

5. All disciplinary actions relating to alleged violation of the use of personal electronic equipment will be immediately and permanently stricken from my personal file

6. Administrators and management of United Hospital will not misrepresent hospital policy and will end all efforts to intimidate, harass, threaten and otherwise weaken any hospital employee. 

7. The title of hospital-wide Policy: Scrub Clothes Reference #: UTD-Admin-064, Section 3 will be changed to read “Uniforms Soiled With Blood or Other Potentially Infectious Materials Such But Not Limited To Viral Pathogens”

8. All hospital employees will be offered hospital provided scrubs without any form of harassment, at least for the full duration of the COVID 19 pandemic 

9. All hospital employees will be offered disposable high guard boot covers (protecting foot ware and lower legs that are currently exposed with hospital gowns), and disposable surgical caps.

10. Because of the lack of preparation and continued disorder of hospital administration, which represents a potential threat to the health, welfare and safety of hospital employees, patients, and the public health, the Incident Command of United Hospital will be open to elected representatives of each hospital unit. These elected representatives will be given immediate access to all communications and decision making transpiring within Incident Command and will be authorized to share that information and decision making with all hospital employees working, caring for patients and hospital operations for the full duration of the COVID 19 crisis. 

Thank you for your time. I hope that Allina can become more accountable in the future.

Cliff Willmeng, RN

Steward, MNA 

Nurses, Staff Sound Alarm: Hospitals Gambling with Worker’s Lives and Public Health

Nurses, Staff Sound Alarm: Hospitals Gambling with Worker’s Lives and Public Health 

Hospital Workers, Forced to Take Their Contaminated Garments Home, May Be Spreading COVID 19

4/6/2020 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: WeDoTheWork@WDTW.org

“We know every day we go to work we're risking our lives and the lives of our families without the proper gear. But we still run in to save our patients knowing no one is going to save us. No one is going to save us but ourselves.” 

- RN, United Hospital ER 

Frontline healthcare workers are speaking out louder and louder as COVID 19 numbers multiply throughout the Twin Cities. As our work conditions become rapidly more perilous, we’re seeing issues, policies, and often contradictory declarations coming from hospital executives and administrators that not only place us at increased risk of infection but also slow staff response times, both of which endanger hospital staff, patients, and the larger community. 

“Nurses are hurting on the frontlines. Our cry is not being heard, and we do not feel adequately protected. We need to have N95s for minimum protection and hospital issued scrubs to keep the virus out of our homes. We put our families, our communities, and our loved ones at risk because of this insufficient standard. I want to see my parents and brothers but I can’t put them at risk. We are mentally and emotionally exhausted providing the best possible care to our patients working under such high hazard conditions.”

- Chloe Adrienne RN, Allina COVID 19 Unit

Months have elapsed from the original outbreak of COVID 19, yet frontline healthcare workers continue to be excluded from hospitals’ central decision-making bodies and “Incident Command” centers which are typically composed of senior hospital administrators. As doctors, nurses, EMTs and other hospital staff, we’re left to await orders and policies written by unknown administrators with questionable clinical experience.

Among the immediate concerns we frontline healthcare workers cite:

- Hospital policies and procedures that confuse or contradict globally accepted medical and scientific standards 

- Administrators’ slow, unresponsive, or outright oppositional responses to the needs of frontline personnel

- Inadequate PPE for procedures, and inadequate use of existing hospital resources such as scrubs and hoods necessary for intubation

- Use of PPE that is exceeds its manufactured limitations 

- Intimidation of healthcare workers that speak out or take measures to protect workplace, patient, and community safety 

- Lack of hazard pay and other compensatory measures for frontline staff

- Exclusion of frontline health care workers from central decision making and communications  

“I have been desperately pleading with management and HR to wear hospital-provided scrubs in the ED to lessen the chance of bringing COVID 19 home to my family and community. These scrubs are already provided for staff to use when you contaminate your own set of scrubs. To protect my family and loved ones I have decided to wear the hospital scrubs while I work. Management and HR are using intimidating tactics by calling everyone individually into the office every day to be questioned about the wearing of the scrubs. Management has told me that they are not going to reprimand me for wearing the scrubs and that they are just collecting information. We should not have to fight to protect ourselves, patients, our families and communities. Where is their compassion and concern for their employees? It seems lacking, and we are feeling let down, mentally exhausted and disposable, like trash.” 

 - Michelle Visnovec, Emergency Medical Technician, ER

 Hospital staff are now testing positive for COVID 19, and hospitalizations of staff are increasing. Because Minnesota has experienced a slower acceleration of contagion and illness, it is critical that healthcare workers be given adequate authority and resources to mount the most effective and energetic response so as to protect ourselves, our patients, and the community we serve. 

“I work with rehab patients on unit 8920 / 8940. In ten years as a nurse I have never seen so much fear and uncertainty. Where are the supplies of PPE going to come from? How will we adapt to emergency conditions that change every day? Allina needs to listen to its frontline staff and bring nurses into the emergency response planning.”

 - Bob Kucera, RN 

We are asking the public to support us in tangible ways. Please take the time to do the following:

1. Comment on Allina social media and let them know you are hearing us and our critical demands 

2. Speak to your friends in frontline roles and encourage them to speak up and tell their story

3. Tweet the CEOs of hospital systems like Penny Wheeler (Allina) and James Hereford (M Health Fairview) to hold them publicly accountable for their role in exacerbating the crisis and risking frontline health care workers 

4. Follow We Do The Work on Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube and visit our website, WDTW.org, for more updates from the frontlines. 

"My experience has been one of fear. We have heard what has happened with healthcare workers dying in New York and Italy and fear that will happen to us as well. Most nurses I know feel that getting infected is not a matter of if, but when. We need proper PPE to protect ourselves, which means the use of an N95 on every shift. Nurses and our expertise are not easily replaced. Extremely serious infection control needs to be implemented now or we will be seeing a dire shortage of nurses due to illness."

- Joel Enright, RN, COVID Rule Out Unit 

Thank you and stay safe and strong. 

*** We Do The Work is a unionized, worker-run media group. If you would like to submit a story, information, or questions, place a message for us on FB or email us at: ContactWDTW@gmail.com. All sources of information remain protected. Like our content? Hit the donate button for a one time donation or a small monthly contribution. We are all volunteer and would love your help. And of course, follow us and share on You Tube, Twitter and Facebook. 

Frontline Staff At United Hospital Assert Workplace Safety, Don Hospital-Issued Scrubs

During this difficult time its important we all stick together as frontline workers. It doens’t matter your job title. It important that we have our proper PPE to do our job right. If not, we are going to be the source of contamination for our loved ones and within the community. Let’s stop the spread of this virus right where we work.”

EMT, United Hospital

Nurses from several units and emergency medical techs were confronted by management at United Hospital after they donned hospital-issued scrubs when they started their shifts Tuesday afternoon. Hospital-issued scrubs are routinely worn by doctors and workers in some hospital units. Now, with the Covid pandemic, frontline hospital staff say hospital scrubs, donned at and removed at the hospital and laundered by a hospital supplier, will help prevent frontline staff from spreading COVID 19 to other patients and to their family members.

Staff in various units and multiple specialties took part in the action. Management requested that staff remove the scrubs. but staff rejected that request and returned to their work areas and patient care. 

Nurses, EMTs. and environmental service workers are normally required to wear personal scrubs to and from work. Administrators at United have repeatedly rejected staff requests for hospital scrubs. On a March 22 phone call with United ER nurse Cliff Willmeng, CNO Janet Pestle summarized the hospital’s position on hospital-issued scrubs stating, “It is not indicated.” When questioned further about the virus’ ability to remain on surface areas, she replied that it was not a serious concern [to hospital administration].

Staff has been advised by management to, “…put them [their personal scrubs] in a plastic bag and bring them home to wash.” Following close patient contact, frontline workers say they can transport infectious material on the scrubs through the hospital and into their own homes, risking other hospital patients, the community, themselves, and their family members, especially vulnerable family members. 

Across the country, as frontline health workers take stronger actions to protect themselves. hospital managers and administrators are upping their threats. Frontline healthcare staff report verbal warnings, reprimanding, disciplinary actions, threats, and even firings like the ER doctor fired in Seattle for protesting the hospital’s lack of PPE. At United Hospital, Willmeng was forced to meet with hospital management after he publicly reported his conversation with CNO Pestle. Because the meeting had potential for disciplinary measures, Willmeng was accompanied by representatives of his union, Co-chair Emily Sippola and Ron Neimark, Labor Relations Specialist of the Minnesota Nurses Association. United took no measures against Willmeng and he returned to work following the meeting. 

There is broad legal and professional precedent for healthcare workers demanding and acquiring basic safety measures and practices. In an email on March 31, Ron Neimark reminded United administrators of these legal rights and protections. The email listed relevant state and federal law relating to the rights of workers and to legal mandates on employers. (Quoted below this story.)

On March 31, even after being confronted by management, United workers did not agree to remove the hospital-issued scrubs, and they began their workday in the light blue scrubs. These actions, taken for the protection of hospital staff and patients as well as their own family members, are likely not over. Multiple frontline workers are now testing positive for COVID 19, and they know that every day they face an increasingly severe risk to their life and health.

We Do The Work salutes the brave and moral actions of United health care workers and all those standing strong for patients and community everywhere. Help these frontline workers by Tweeting CEO Penny Wheeler and demanding she #FreeTheScrubs.

Rights and Duties of Employers. Minnesota Stat 182.653, Subd, 2. Each employer shall furnish to each of its employees conditions of employment and a place of employment free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious injury or harm to its employees. 

Criminal Penalties. Minnesota Stat. 182.667, Subd, 2. Willful and Repeated Violations. Any employer who willfully or repeatedly violates the requirements of section 182.653, any safety and health standard promulgated under this chapter, any existing rule promulgated by the department, may be punished by a fine of not more than $70,000 or by imprisonment for not more than six months or by both; except, that if the conviction is for a violation committed after a first conviction of such person, punishment shall be a fine of not more than $100,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both. 

Minnesota Nurse Practice Act. Minnesota Stat, 148.261 Subd,1 (2)(iii)(5) Grounds for Disciplinary Action. Failure to or inability to perform professional or practical nursing as defined in section 148.171, subdivision 14 or 15, with reasonable skill and safety, including failure of a registered nurse to supervise or a licensed practical nurse to monitor adequately the performance of acts by any person working at the nurse’s direction. 

Asking, directing and requiring nurses to work without the proper PPE puts other patients and caregivers at risk. The nurse has the same duty to practice safely while delivering care to the non- COVID-19 patients as he or she does to the rule-out COVID-19 patients and the positive COVID-19 patients. Failing to provide proper PPE means the hospital’s is failing to protect both the patients and the whole community.  

 Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. General Duty Clause. 29 U.S.C. Sect. 654, 5(a)1. Each employer: (1) shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees; (2) shall comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this Act. 

Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.29 U.S.C. Sect. 654, 5(b). Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health standards and all rules, regulations, and orders issued pursuant to this Act which are applicable to his own actions and conduct. 

Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. Right to Refuse Dangerous Work. 29 U.S.C. Sect. 1977.12(b)(2). However, occasions might arise when an employee is confronted with a choice between not performing assigned tasks or subjecting himself to serious injury or death arising from a hazardous condition at the workplace. If the employee, with no reasonable alternative, refuses in good faith to expose himself to the dangerous condition, he would be protected against subsequent discrimination. The condition causing the employee's apprehension of death or injury must be of such a nature that a reasonable person, under the circumstances then confronting the employee, would conclude that there is a real danger of death or serious injury and that there is insufficient time, due to the urgency of the situation, to eliminate the danger through resort to regular statutory enforcement channels. In addition, in such circumstances, the employee, where possible, must also have sought from his employer, and been unable to obtain, a correction of the dangerous condition. 

St Paul MN: Reversing Prior Cuts, Bethesda To Become COVID 19 Specialty Facility

CEO Hereford in Spotlight as Front Line Health Care Workers Begin to Weigh In 

March 17, 2020

After cuts to beds and staff rocked St Paul nurses, patients, and their families, M Health Fairview Bethesda has announced it will re-expand care from 50 to 90 beds and the facility will be turned into a COVID 19 care facility. The announcement follows weeks of protest to the cuts, which were only enacted February 10, 2020, and which accompanied wider conversation with CEO James Hereford of closing down neighboring St Joseph’s Hospital entirely. 

The news stunned the community and brought intense pressure and scrutiny on M Health Fairview leadership. The pandemic of COVID 19 was already well underway when the cuts to Bethesda beds were implemented.  

CEO James Hereford, who has seen worsening public relations issues for the cuts and his promotion of “Lean” health care policies, seemed to be rebuked by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz while on stage at the Governor’s live press address on Monday. “A lot of industries are just on(in)-time delivery, which is a wonderful model for manufacturing. It is a terrible model for ventilators. Its also a terrible model if we don’t have food supply in there.”

Hereford has not returned communications after numerous contacts by We Do The Work. 

The announcement to expand Bethesda facilities came with additional questions from front line health care workers, who have been struggling with multiple issues since the start of the outbreak. Concerns range from proper training of new staff, adequate protective gear, nurse to patient ratios for complex and contagious patients, to what type of staffing relief will be provided to new workers. Sick pay benefits were already leveraged by M Health Fairview. Staff were informed that if they ran out of sick pay during the crisis, they would have to go into a negative sick pay balance and refund lost hours from future earned benefits. Allina Health, another major hospital system announced a similar measure this week.  

Many Fairview workers welcomed the announcement, which seemed to come alongside exploding calls for sweeping changes to COVID 19 response. Many front line health care workers are reporting worsening stress, insomnia, and fear of losing their lives. They are routinely citing “Calcified” corporate decision-making endangering patients and staff alike. Health care workers in contact with We Do The Work, listed the following among their demands, which extended to the communities they serve:

·      Airborne precautions, access to N95 respirators, and fit-testing for staff 

·      Negative pressure rooms for COVID 19 rule outs or confirmed cases

·      Frontline staff inclusion in all top level decision making bodies and communications 

·      Regular testing of employees and CLEAR process for staff who have been exposed

·      Creation of specific respiratory care and care facilities

·      Guidelines healthcare workers on pregnancy and exposure risk

·      Doubling of hospital staff with hazard pay 

·      Indefinite unemployment insurance for all people who have lost work

·      And end to all evictions 

·      Cancellation of rent for all people unable to pay

·      No medical costs for uninsured and billing only to include costs to insurance companies, Medicare, and Medicaid 

With multiple, dynamic, forces at work, health care workers appear to be taking a growing and powerful role in the nation’s worsening version of the COVID pandemic. The reopening of Bethesda only weeks following layoffs and bed closures seemed to confirm this, and opens new avenues to overcoming corporate health care models that have held response and safety in check for months. 

We Do The Work continues to report from the front lines of the nation’s COVID 19 crisis. Please contact us with information from your community or health care facility, and feel encouraged to reach out to the CEOs on their more transparent platform of Twitter. (Pictured here, CEO James Hereford, M Health Fairview and Allina Health CEO Penny Wheeler)

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