On Thursday, June 14th over 100 technical workers at Abbott Northwestern hospital voted to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota.
The Abbott techs were formerly members of the Association of Diagnostic Imaging Technologists (ADIT), a “professional association” that consistently failed to deliver for workers, made shady deals with the boss, and repeatedly interfered with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota’s efforts to organize techs at other hospitals.
Last year, ADIT members at Abbot Northwestern hospital attempted to join SEIU. However, their effort was stopped when ADIT’s leaders signed a new contract with the hospital – without letting their members vote on it! This steeled the resolve of these workers to leave ADIT, and one year later, these techs reignited their campaign and are now spreading it to other Minnesota hospitals.
“There is strength in numbers and SEIU has more power. In this day and age the more representation you have the better,” said one of the newest SEIU HCMN Techs, Johnny Munster a Special Imaging Radiology Technologist at Abbott Northwestern Hospital
Service and maintenance workers at Abbot Northwestern who are SEIU Healthcare Minnesota members played a leading role in helping the techs to organize.
“This is a big step for technical workers in Minnesota, and the first step in raising their wages, benefits and standards,” said Executive Board member Jeff Sarro, a Scheduling Coordinator at Abbott. “These technical workers see that SEIU is the way to go for raising their standards within their hospitals and across the state.”
