Minnesota Nurses

LABOR

Target Violated Labor Laws; NLRB Calls for New Union Election     An administrative law judge from the National Labor Relations Board has overturned the union election last year at a Target store on New York’s Long Island and ordered a new election citing unfair labor practices.

General Mills Cuts 850 Jobs    General Mills expects the plan to result in total pretax charges of about $109 million, which will cover costs related to workers whose jobs are terminated and equipment.

Barbara Ehrenreich:  A War on Poverty, Indeed    ;Individually, the poor are not all that tempting to thieves. Mug a banker, and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor, and you’ll be lucky to get bus fare to flee the crime scene. But the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them.  The trick, however, is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators.

Viewing the World Through Eyes of Working Poor   A unique program is teaching Minnesotans compassion for the working poor, by putting them in the shoes of those who struggle on a daily basis.

HEALTH CARE

Patients Aren’t Great at Figuring Out If They Got Excellent Medical Care   The quality of medical care is a popular subject of debate, and oftentimes complaint.  Sometimes gripes are legitimate and sometimes they’re not. But a new study finds that patients’ opinions of the care they receive can be quite different from the actual quality of the medical care. More alarming is that opinions and experiences vary greatly by race.

Clinics Certified as Health Care Homes Now Serving 2M Minnesotans    DHS estimates that approximately 135,000 Medicaid recipients are served by a certified health care home. Minnesota is also one of eight states where the federal Medicare program has aligned with the state program to pay for health care homes. More than 225,000 Medicare beneficiaries are expected to be served by health care homes during the three-year project.