Members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota Feb. 12 ratified a new three-year contract with HealthPartners in Minneapolis-St. Paul that establishes the first health care worker training fund in the Midwest, the union announced Feb. 13.

The agreement, which covers some 1,500 registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, laboratory technicians, physicians assistants, midwives, and other caregivers at 29 health care clinics in the Twin Cities areas, was reached Feb. 8, and averted a two-day strike scheduled for Feb. 13-14.

The contract, which runs from Jan. 31 through Jan. 31, 2011, establishes an employer-funded training fund to ensure the retention of experienced caregivers, according to Ryan Nagle, the union's director of communications. The employer will contribute $150,000 to the fund in each year of the contract, he said. Any money not used in the first year will be rolled over into the second year, he said, adding that it will take some time to get the fund up and running.

The fund will be administered jointly by the company and the union, Nagle said, and will be used for continuing education to make sure that employees are keeping current in their skills or are moving up a career ladder. The training fund is in addition to a provision for tuition reimbursement of $1,500 in each year of the contract, he said.

In a Feb. 14 statement, Calvin U. Allen, HealthPartners senior vice president for corporate strategic planning and human resources, said that “the addition of an employer-funded training program to the contract will help us attract, develop, and retain employees to help meet our changing staffing needs. This program is consistent with our practice of providing employees with excellent education assistance opportunities,” he added.

A company spokesman declined to comment further on the details of the contract.

Establishes Patient Care Committee.

The contract establishes a patient care committee in which union representatives and “high level” representatives of HealthPartners will discuss issues involving staffing levels or “innovative ideas” for delivering patient care, Nagle said. Although the union had initially sought inclusion of language requiring binding arbitration on issues that were not settled within 30 days, the union eventually dropped that proposal, he said.

“The formation of the patient care committee is the first step to making sure our voices are heard in critical patient care and staffing decisions,” according to Jean Pfarr, an RN at a HealthPartners clinic in St. Paul.

The agreement provides across-the-board wage increases of 3.5 percent in the first year, and 3 percent in each of the second and third years, Nagle said. Noting that there are 65 different classifications of employees covered by the contract, Nagle said he could not provide any type of average salary for the bargaining unit.

The contract also maintains fully employer-paid health insurance for individuals and makes no change to the employee share of $70 per month toward premiums for family coverage, he said.

Copyright 2008, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.