Workers at Essentia Health, who are members of Local 9460, continue to campaign against 900 job layoffs announced by their employer in March, as the coronavirus pandemic began to spread across the United States.
Local leaders have been meeting with management for several weeks to negotiate the layoffs, which made up 6 percent of the company’s workforce. That number does not account for an additional 850 employees who were indefinitely placed on administrative leave across several locations. Essentia, unfortunately, is refusing to pay the laid-off workers’ health insurance beyond July.
Members and their allies have organized several actions against these layoffs with vast community support. There are also large billboards dotting the landscape of northeast Minnesota in support of the workers, which were erected following a caravan through downtown Duluth, Minn., on June 1. The local also hosted an informational picket on June 27 in Spooner, Wis.
“We’re going to keep holding Essentia accountable for the millions in funds they’ve received from the government and keep fighting back against the remaining layoffs to make sure our folks can get back to work,” Hughes said. “We just need to keep our eyes on the prize.”
Local 9460 includes roughly 2,400 members in the northern Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin area. Their contract with Essentia Health is its largest.