Timeline of Key Events
- Nov. 27, 2023: The Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) filed a petition with the NLRB seeking to represent about 400 East Market advanced practice providers (APPs) in collective bargaining.
- Feb. 5, 2024: The NLRB’s local office (Region 18) held a two-week hearing during which Essentia Health and the MNA presented evidence on the issue of whether the MNA’s proposed bargaining unit complied with the NLRB’s Health Care Rule (which separates acute and non-acute care bargaining units to help preserve access to care in the event of a work stoppage).
- June 11, 2024: After reviewing post-hearing legal briefs, the NLRB’s Region 18 Director issued her ruling calling for a mailed-ballot election for APPs as a single bargaining unit (as requested by the MNA).
- July 23, 2024: The NLRB Region 18 office counted all ballots returned in the secret-ballot election and determined that a majority of East Market APPs voted in favor of MNA representation.
- July 25, 2024: Essentia Health filed a formal Request for Review with the NLRB’s main office in Washington, D.C. asking for a review of the local NLRB Region 18 decision to allow the APP election to move forward as a single voting unit.
- Sept. 12, 2024: We are still waiting for the NLRB in Washington D.C. to respond to our Request for Review.
Understanding the NLRB’s Healthcare Bargaining Unit Rule
We maintain our belief that the NLRB’s Region 18 decision to allow the MNA’s petition to move forward to election as a single voting unit of 400+ East Market APPs is a significant departure from the NLRB’s own long-standing Health Care Rule, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991.[1]
For more than three decades, the NLRB’s Health Care Rule has defined healthcare bargaining units in acute care hospitals and specifies that, for purposes of collective bargaining, acute- and non-acute care units should be separated.
To our knowledge, Essentia’s case is the first time the NLRB has issued such a decision in which the NLRB abandoned its own standard defined in its Health Care Rule to separate acute care and non-acute care groups for the purpose of collective bargaining.
We continue to strongly believe that the Health Care Rule applies in this case, and that the NLRB’s Region 18 decision to hold an election as a single voting unit is a major departure from the NLRB’s long-standing application of its own Health Care Rule.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/our-history/1974-health-care-amendments
