Minnesota Nurses

 June 7, 2011

So as you can see Nurses, the negotiations are heating up. From Bob Verchota’s email I guess I am demonizing Sanford and management because I have told you the truth and not the half-truth. Management is not happy because you are strong and informed and you are not going to shut up and take whatever they decide to give you. You don’t have to take my word on the fact that management’s proposals are concessionary; the Federal Mediator said so as soon as he looked at them. You can view them at www.mnnurses.org/bemidji

If we are going to go tit for tat with management you need to understand the background of what happened the night before negotiations. Bob Verchota and the hospital’s lawyer, who has been replaced without explanation though he and Bob admitted shame over the incident, were sitting downtown in the middle of Brigid’s Cross when they were heard by Dan Engelhart, our MNA business agent, and who knows who else discussing the strategy of putting their proposals up next to ours and saying take it or leave it and preparing for a work-stoppage. Bob V. and their lawyer went into such detail as to discuss which company would be providing scabs to work your job while you were locked out or on strike. Again, this was the night before negotiations even started! So Dan did confront them on bargaining in bad faith when they were planning on not accepting the so-called “MNA Agenda”, which by the way is safe staffing and just treatment of employees. We do not want to strike and the only way that would happen is if management would force it upon us. If management is so positive that we can come to an agreement than why would they feel the need to plan for temporary workers to care for our patients? Discussions about truth are often very confrontational and our management apparently doesn’t like that.

The truth about what happened with the meeting with Brenda is being so manipulated and distorted by management that I have to use Bob Verchota’s terminology in describing management’s “shameful behavior.”  Contrary to what is being described we did not lay siege to Brenda’s office and hold her captive. She was free to leave and free to ask us to leave the entire 5 minutes we were there. When we were asked to leave we left. We stopped by as a group to ask for a meeting due to the fact that individuals are scared of Brenda because of her repeated history of singling out and attacking her employees.  In the end, she has allegedly filed a police report, against who I’m not sure. For what I don’t know and to what her intention is I can only speculate.

Bob/management is clearly trying to intimidate us into believing that we are only able to be organized to a certain degree and that we must be careful to not step outside the boundaries or we could be picked off. To the extent that law enforcement and security be involved in separating employees and management because management is afraid to meet and have a conversation like adults is deplorable.

Bob wants to lecture us about professional behavior while he backs a manager that pits employee against employee with lies and unjust treatment.

He plans for a work-stoppage (lockout?) before beginning negotiations with intentions of hiring scabs through a company owned by a man with ill repute. Bob told us that Paul Hanson told him to do so and he was just following orders.

Bob tells us that it’s ok that the homecare and longterm care nurses take a pay cut because it’s not the majority of us and it’s just to get them into “market value”.

Bob says that taking away your pension and turning into a something less reliable is an opportunity for you.

Bob says that giving you short-term disability is better than having PTO to use as you feel necessary when you want/need to.

Bob thinks us switching our insurance to a HMO with an undefined network is ok, tells us that they will explore options for seeing specialists in the Cities or elsewhere but has not provided specifics.

Bob thinks that going from paying $90/month for insurance with no deductable, to $150/month with a $750 deductable is ok too, the rest of the insurance is so complicated that we have had to get a consultant to compare the plans.

Bob said that we were told and knew Evan would not be at the staffing data gathering meeting. We were not informed of that. We assumed that because Evan had requested the meeting himself that he would have hopped on the corporate jet and come to hear just what the nurses had to say about the care that the patients are receiving at our facility. After all, that same day two of the other Sanford Presidents came to town to film a video at our hospital about how great things are in the Sanford world. It turns out that the safe staffing meeting was a glorified Labor-Management meeting where we informed the same local managers that we are over worked and understaffed with similar results to what we have been having all along.

Management’s attorney says that safe staffing is ambitious of us to ask for even though Fargo has better staffing than Bemidji. Bob called our proposal an ‘overreach’. There was no response given to us at bargaining and instead it seems we have gotten a response outside of bargaining in the email sent this past Friday.

I urge you to examine the facts for yourself. Don’t take my word for it or Bob Verchota’s. I am doing this to represent all of you including myself. I was born in the hospital and the job’s it has provided have put food on my table my entire life.  I have seen my family members and yours being cared for in this hospital and will see more. I can honestly say the hospital is in my blood and my blood is in it. I want the hospital to be a place of pride for all of us to be able to hold our heads high and say, “I am a nurse at the hospital in Bemidji.” That means that we need to be able to provide care that the patients deserve at the very least.

Life is hard and it takes courage to do what is necessary at times, but we as Registered Nurses are the strongest most trusted people there are and we have to stay strong for our patients and each other.

Sincerely,

Peter Danielson, RN
MNA Co-Chair
Sanford Bemidji Hospital

What really happened in Brenda Freborg’s office on May 25th?   Read more on the MNA’s website 

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