About 1,800 union workers at Bloomington, Minn.-based HealthPartners are scheduled to vote this week on whether to authorize their bargaining team to call a seven-day strike, Star Tribune reports.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota said voting will begin at 6 a.m. Feb. 6 at several location in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and voting results are scheduled to be announced Feb. 7, according to the newspaper.
A vote in favor of strike authorization would give union bargainers the OK to call a strike after giving HealthPartners a 10-day notice.
The union's contract expired Feb. 1.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota says management at HealthPartners, a health insurer and hospital operator, wants "massive concessions" on worker healthcare benefits, and "there is no reason a $7 billion organization ... should be taking one dime out of the pockets of its front-line caregivers to pad the corporate bottom line."
HealthPartners countered in a statement to the Star Tribune that union members "have market-leading benefits, and that will continue even with our proposal."
"We're proposing a set of modifications that would support better health and encourage our colleagues to get care in high-quality, more affordable settings," the statement added. "We feel that these are fair and reasonable modifications, especially given the financial headwinds facing the healthcare industry, including our organization."
HealthPartners operates Regions Hospital in St. Paul and Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minn.
SEIU Healthcare Minnesota represents more than 35,000 healthcare and long-term care workers in the state.
Read the full Star Tribune report here.