MINNESOTA – Allina hospice nurses with SEIU Healthcare MN & IA reached a Tentative Agreement (TA) with their employer Wednesday night on their first union contract. The deal came at the end of a day when the hospice nurses had planned to vote on whether to authorize an open-ended ULP strike, following 1-day and 7-day ULP strikes that happened this summer and fall. After significant progress was made on priority issues for the nurses on Monday and Tuesday, the union’s bargaining team decided to postpone the strike vote to see if they could reach a TA with Allina on Wednesday, which they did around 8pm last night.

Abby MacDonald, a RN Case Manager for over three years at Allina and member of the SEIU bargaining team, shared the group’s excitement and relief to achieve this TA:

“We are incredibly proud to have won this Tentative Agreement, which represents meaningful progress toward addressing the key issues hospice nurses have been fighting to change. We are deeply grateful to every member of our bargaining unit, as well as our patients, our community, and our fellow unions who stood with us throughout this fight. The support helped us push for the changes necessary to recruit and retain the best nurses to do this critical work. Through organizing, bargaining, and two ULP strikes, we demonstrated, and experienced, the incredible power of solidarity. This fight has strengthened our collective voice and will continue to guide us as we work to ensure that the essential work of caring for dying patients and their families is respected, valued, and supported. This victory belongs to all of us.”

The full details are being shared with the membership, but highlights include:

• A union wage scale, establishing a fair and consistent system for compensation and guaranteed additional raises up to 20 years of nursing experience
• Immediate wage increases for all hospice nurses, with an average first-year increase of 10%. And these initial wage increases will be back-dated to August 1.
• Annual increases in compensation for all nurses of 3% in year two and 3% in year three of the agreement
• Extra pay for extra work. 1.5x pay on a daily basis when nurses complete their assigned patient-care work beyond their normal scheduled day, including when they need to work long to complete their charting.
• A more fair mileage-reimbursement system, for nurses who have no office and drive for a living, going from one dying patient’s home to another and another throughout their workday.
• And much more

Phillip Cryan, Executive Vice President of SEIU Healthcare MN & IA, shared the union’s appreciation for representatives of Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office helping make this TA possible:

“The hospice nurses have fought so hard for so long to reach this deal, and they experienced great frustration at earlier stages of the process. Hospice nurses don’t go out on strike, twice, without feeling deeply disrespected and unheard. But in the last couple weeks, since the second of those strikes, things changed significantly and we have made a ton of progress in this final stage of the negotiations. We are so appreciative of representatives from Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office, who stepped in over the last couple weeks to work with both parties to make this strong first contract possible.”

The group will be holding a ratification vote on the TA next Monday. The group, which brings together over 60 hospice nurses who support Minnesotans who are at home for their final days, voted to form their union in March of 2025 and held dozens of bargaining sessions over the last year and a half.

The TA comes at a time when California-based Sutter Health is attempting to purchase Allina Health, an acquisition that Attorney General Keith Ellison is currently reviewing to determine whether it is in the public interest of the people of Minnesota. The proposed acquisition has raised questions and concerns from frontline workers, patients and community members.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa unites nearly 60,000 healthcare and long-term care workers in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and home care throughout Minnesota and Iowa.