We, the undersigned members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota demand that HealthPartners honor our union contract and partner with us to ensure our safety and economic security as we navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the changing needs of our community.

It's time to stand together to protect our rights, our safety and our security. In this uncertain time, HealthPartners is taking to opportunity to ignore our contract and refuse to meet and negotiate these drastic changes. We want to be clear that SEIU Healthcare Minnesota has reached out several times to HealthPartners employers to ask to work in partnership with them so that we can navigate the fast paced changes together. They have refused to bargain our partnership.   

Instead, they are asking for us to give up our rights and intend to do as they want, while asking us to use up our vacation time to be on call for them. As you may have heard, HealthPartners is implementing a new program to float employees to other areas where work is needed in response to the requirement to cancel elective surgeries and procedures, closing down dental services and in anticipation of other low needs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This plan violates our contract in several ways.

We are the frontline caregivers in the battle to treat and prevent the spread of this disease. Through a temporary down time, we are asking the employers to keep us whole until the surge in care will soon be needed. 

These changes are happening across the entire HealthPartners system. The changes violate our contracts and HealthPartner's refusal to bargain is an Unfair Labor Practice, and SEIU has filed grievances and charges with the National Labor Relations Board, but the most powerful way we can fight back is by acting together as union members.

If you want to win FULLY-PAID LEAVE please join your fellow SEIU members in taking the following actions:

1. DO NOT VOLUNTEER FOR THE REDEPLOYMENT POOL/INTERIM PAY. If you have already signed up, please send your supervisor an email. Tell your supervisor that you are no longer interested in participating in the redeployment pool, but you will reconsider as soon as HealthPartners negotiates an agreement together with you and your co-workers who are members of SEIU.
2. Sign this petition below to secure Administrative Leave Pay for Low Needs.
3. Take a selfie with the message “Partner With Us.”

If all of us act together, we will succeed at getting HealthPartners to negotiate with us. We believe HealthPartners has an obligation to protect the safety and economic security of all of us who are putting ourselves on the line each day to provide for our patients. Our friends and neighbors across the Twin Cities are counting on us to care for their loved ones as COVID-19 spreads through our community. There is no reason HealthPartner's profits should come before our financial and physical health. Allina has already agreed to provide paid leave. Grocery stores are providing hazard pay to grocery workers. It's time for HealthPartners to do right by us. It's time for HealthPartners to negotiate with us.

Please do your part to make this happen now.  Decline the pool, sign the petition, take a selfie and stay tuned for further actions throughout the week.

Q&A:

• What if I go negative on paid time (vacation, sick, PTO)? Will I have to pay that money back to HealthPartners?  

If you go negative in your vacation or PTO banks you will be paying yourself back. The time you earn in the future will be applied to your negative balance. We think this is wrong, but your employer will not agree to secure your pay while we navigate the changing needs of our communities.

• What if I decide to volunteer for the pool? 

You may be low needed. You could also be offered extra hours or be reassigned according to the contract within your own job classification, pending on what work is available.

• I can't afford not to sign up for the redeployment pool and get interim pay?

It is a difficult situation, but HealthPartners is not willing to secure pay at this time. You can use your vacation or PTO to keep your FTE whole for now. If they low need or send people home without following the contract we will grieve it. 

• Can I file for unemployment benefits?

If your hours are reduced, you can apply for unemployment insurance (UI).  Visit: uimn.org/applicants/needtoknow/news-updates/covid-19.jsp

• What about my health insurance?

As long as you continue to be employed your health insurance should not be impacted.