From the Desk of Chris Cimino: Labor Update

By Christopher Cimino, CEO, Chessboard Consulting

• August 10, 2026: More than 120 registered nurses at Hutchinson Health in Hutchinson, Minnesota (part of the HealthPartners system) announced their intent to join the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), filing a representation election petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
  
  
• August 7, 2026: In a major national labor policy development, the U.S. Senate confirmed Republican nominee James Macy and reconfirmed Democratic nominee David Prouty to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The confirmations establish a 3-1 Republican majority on the Board (Chairman James Murphy, Member Scott Mayer, Member James Macy, and Member David Prouty). This 3-vote majority grants the Board the threshold needed to revisit and potentially overrule key Biden-era precedents regarding union election procedures, voluntary recognition standards (Cemex), bargaining unit determinations, and employer speech protections.
  
  
• August 4, 2026: In a 2-1 panel decision (Smith Mountain Healthcare standard), the NLRB ruled that a collective bargaining agreement cannot serve as a bar to a decertification petition under the contract bar doctrine when its exact effective and expiration dates are not readily ascertainable from the face of the agreement without relying on extrinsic evidence.
  
  
• July 30, 2026: Registered nurses at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation in Center City, Minnesota, represented by the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), voted overwhelmingly to ratify their historic first collective bargaining agreement. The ratification concludes a two-week unfair labor practice (ULP) strike launched on July 15 by the 60-RN unit, establishing the first unionized nurse bargaining unit in the Hazelden Betty Ford system nationwide.
  
  
• July 23, 2026: Attending physicians across the University of California health system held a major press conference at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital/UCSF to formally announce their organizing campaign with SEIU Doctors United, targeting nearly 10,000 attending doctors across UC facilities (UCLA, UCSF, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego). The public launch followed the July 20 tentative contract agreement reached for 6,400 UC resident physicians and fellows represented by CIR-SEIU, which included an 18% salary increase and emergency department capacity measures.
  
  
• July 22, 2026: Registered nurses represented by NNOC/NNU at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital (SLUH) in St. Louis held an informational rally protesting SSM Health's termination of two veteran nurses for allegedly violating non-solicitation policies by visiting other non-union SSM Health hospitals to discuss unionization.
  
  
• July 20, 2026: On Monday, July 20, SEIU-Doctors Council officially announced an organizing campaign aimed at organizing nearly 10,000 University of California attending physicians employed across the UC’s public health system at UCLA, UCSF, and UC Davis.
  
  The union launched a UC Physicians Committee website for the campaign. The University of California Health System has updated its labor relations webpage to acknowledge the physicians’ organizing campaign. The union is holding a town hall on Thursday, July 23 – hosted by physicians and labor attorneys – who will discuss the campaign and answer questions (see attached flyer). The campaign reportedly centers on the following attending physician concerns:

• • Patient access and emergency department boarding
  • Staffing shortages
  • Administrative burdens
  • Financial decisions affecting frontline care
  • The future of academic medicine.

Importantly, the attending physicians’ campaign announcement comes just three days after CIR-SEIU announced its first tentative agreement covering 6,400 University of California resident physicians and fellows. (CIR-SEIU and SEIU-Doctors Council are, collectively, under the umbrella of “Doctors United”.) In organizing UC resident physicians, the union also created a custom website to share organizing and contract negotiations updates with resident physicians and fellows.

The UC Physicians Committee campaign also comes just four weeks after Doctor’s Council SEIU announced it reached a first contract agreement for over 500 attending physicians working at ChristianaCare healthcare facilities in Delaware and Maryland (Christiana Hospital, Newark, DE; Wilmington Hospital, Wilmington, DE; Union Hospital, Elkton, MD; Middletown Free Standing Emergency Department, Middletown, DE).

• July 20, 2026: Nurses from SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital (SLUH) in St. Louis who are represented by National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United announced they will hold a rally on Wed., July 22 to protest the reported “terminations” of two SLUH nurses. The nurses reportedly violated SSM Health’s solicitation policy by reportedly visiting other SSM Health hospitals (where they are not employed) to solicit on behalf of NNOC/NNU in an effort to expand the union’s membership among SSM Health nurses.
  
  
• July 20, 2026: The Teamsters continue their aggressive organizing campaign to target Endeavor Health registered nurses across the Chicago market, with the most aggressive activity centered on Endeavor Health Evanston Hospital. Almost daily, the union posts polished social media updates to the organizing campaign’s Instagram account, “TeamsterNurses.” On July 20, the union’s Instagram post addresses an “anti-union video” Endeavor Health reportedly created to communicate with nurses. The union states, “If nurses truly had equal influence, there wouldn’t be a union drive…Without a union, management can listen or ignore concerns at its discretion. With a union, nurses negotiate as equals…Fighting Endeavor’s anti-union propaganda with facts...”
  
  
• July 16, 2026: The NLRB announced that an election is scheduled for Tues., August 11, from 7 to 10 a.m. for a proposed bargaining unit at Lakeview Memorial Hospital Association in Minnesota. The voting group – voting together as a single unit – includes RNs, nurse practitioners, medical social workers, music therapists, and spiritual counselors.
  
  
• July 15, 2026: Minnesota Nurses Association (NNU affiliate) launched a ULP strike against the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation (as of July 20, the strike continues). The bargaining unit of 60 RNs elected the MNA in January 2025 and is still without its first contract. The union claims Hazelden is retaliating against nurses for protected, concerted activity and is making “unilateral changes to working conditions.”
  
  
• There is still no election date set for nurses from The George Washington University Hospital who filed a petition on April 15 to decertify the DCNA/NNU. To date, the regional director has barred an election based on blocking charges; the hospital has objected based on the union’s protracted lack of response to ULP charges filed many months ago. The union was first elected in July 2023 after filing for representation in March 2023, just one week after GWHU residents/fellows filed for representation with CIR-SEIU.’
  
  
• July 2, 2026: 12 NYSNA/NNU represented nurses working in utilization review at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, NY, were reportedly notified with 45 days' advance notice of plans that their positions were being eliminated. The union is claiming the nurses’ positions are being replaced with artificial intelligence software. NYSNA/NNU is claiming the “terminations” directly violate their contract agreement, which was most recently finalized in Feb 2026 following a month-long strike. A copy of the letter sent to the nurses is here.
  
  
• July 1, 2026: 150 Allina Health physicians working at Unity and Mercy hospitals voted to authorize Doctor’s Council SEIU to call a strike.
  • At this time, no 10-day notice has been delivered.
  • The last bargaining update posted by Allina Health was on June 3; in that update, Allina indicated the next scheduled bargaining session would be held on June 24 (strike authorization was announced six days later).
  • The union was elected in March 2023 and certified (after a series of challenges) in January 2024.
  • Allina’s bargaining update site indicates the parties have met “more than 50 times” in an effort to reach agreement.
  • NOTE: Unity and Mercy physicians voted to unionize before the October 2023 election in which Allina Health primary care physicians also elected Doctors Council. Allina primary care physicians ratified their first CBA on April 12, 2026.♦

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Author bio:

Chris Cimino is President and CEO of Chessboard Consulting, Inc. In his position at Chessboard Consulting, Chris has assisted hundreds of hospitals and health systems in the development and implementation of strategic plans to build and maintain a high level of employee engagement. Over his 30 years as a labor and employee relations consultant, Chris has also accumulated a wealth of experience dealing with many of the latest tactics currently employed by unions in the Midwest and around the U.S.

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