Allina relents on Mercy Hospital doctor unionization

Allina Health announced this week that it will no longer pursue federal remedies to block the unionization of its staff doctors at its Mercy Hospital campuses in Coon Rapids and Fridley.

The decision followed a ruling by a regional director with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Allina's appeal to the union movement. The ruling upheld a vote by a margin of 67 to 38 for Mercy's doctors and podiatrists to organize with New York-based Doctors Council.

Doctors are relieved that they can move forward and seek contract terms with Allina that increase their say over how they practice and care for patients, said Dr. Alia Sharif, a hospitalist at Mercy who treats patients admitted to the hospital.

"The whole premise of this unionization, or the concern behind this, was that physicians have lost their autonomy — and that autonomy is what has helped us keep the sanctity of our profession for all these years," she said.

The COVID-19 pandemic fueled the movement, because doctors faced unprecedented demands to care for infected patients. Mercy's success inspired a similar union movement by 500 Allina outpatient doctors and clinicians, who also voted in favor of joining Doctors Council and could make up the nation's largest unionized group of private sector physicians.

Allina is one of Minnesota's largest medical providers, operating 12 hospitals and more than 90 clinics.

The Minneapolis-based health system will begin negotiating an initial contract with the Mercy doctors and their union, it said in a statement: "We remain steadfast in our support for our physicians and their well-being, and our collective focus remains providing exceptional care that our patients and their families expect from us."

Allina had previously challenged the March 2023 election on the grounds that some of the votes were by doctors who were ineligible because of supervisory roles and who used those roles to influence colleagues.

The Jan. 10 ruling by Jennifer Hadsall, a Minneapolis-based regional director for the NLRB, said that Allina attempted an "extensive antiunion campaign" and that it "mitigated any conduct engaged" by doctors in supervisory roles to lobby for votes.