The doctors unionized in 2023. Since then, the company has stalled through 60 sessions while refusing to meet the doctors’ core demands: cost-of-living adjustments after a year without raises, paid sick leave, an end to noncompete agreements and a voice in how artificial intelligence is deployed in patient care. “A healthcare system that cannot care for its physicians is not going to be able to care for the people that it promises to care for in this community,” Dr. Alia Sharif at Allina Health told CBS News. She pointed to service closures, patients boarded in emergency departments and Allina’s shuttering of four Twin Cities clinic locations last year. “Too often, we watch decisions that prioritize financial pressures over the needs of our communities and patients.” Dr. Saul Singh was blunt: “I hope this wakes up Allina. We need to see change.” The doctors describe b…

The doctors cannot wait for the bureaucracy to act. They must form a rank-and-file committee now to enforce their democratic decision. Five days after the authorization vote, on July 6, 65 Allina hospice nurses walked off the job, picketing outside Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis in a one-day strike before returning to work Tuesday. The nurses unionized in spring 2025 with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa and have been negotiating their first contract for nearly a year. Susie Smerz, a hospice nurse and member of the union’s bargaining team, told MPR News that unlike Allina’s hospital nurses, hospice workers receive no overtime or holiday pay. They work 18-hour days, crisscrossing the metro area, for the same salary they would get for lighter hours. “We’re not interested in working for free, we’re not interested in being exhausted, we’re not interested in b…