I’ve worked at the Albert Lea Mayo hospital for 18 years doing sterile processing, and I am proud of the work that myself and my coworkers do to make our hospital run for families in our community. If you had asked me 10 years ago if I would ever vote to strike because of the way workers and our communities were being treated by Mayo, I probably would have called you crazy.

But that is what happened, and that isn’t even the most shocking part.

After a year of bargaining with Mayo, their only offer is to agree to let them undermine our jobs and take away things like health care from dedicated employees. We offered to talk about details and give up on some things, but they continued to only bring their hardline offer to the table time and again, not caring that it would hurt so many families. Finally, at the end of November, we took the big step of voting to authorize a one-day union labor practice strike if things didn’t change. When the day of the strike came, we were a bit cold and a little scared, but were quickly warmed up by the fact that everyone who was with us through the process and the strike vote (92 percent of our group) were out in the cold together fighting for what was right.

After giving and giving and giving, we finally said enough is enough. We demand respect, good jobs and quality rural health care from Mayo, which has made record profits and just gave their CEO an 11 percent raise to $2.8 million per year. Yet a small group of executives are closing health care services at our hospital because they aren’t profitable enough while rolling back protections for working families in our community.

We were proud to stand together and fight for what is right. But then Mayo locked us out over Christmas because they claimed they had to honor the contract of replacement workers. It felt a bit strange that they suddenly valued the people working in their facility enough to do what is right by them. Sure, it would have meant lost money if they paid for a week and only got a day, but we know Mayo has the money for that. Mayo chose to keep those workers for seven days because they wanted to prove a point about who has power.

We knew they were threatening to do this, but it still was shocking to be turned away from the job I have done for nearly two decades and told I wasn’t allowed to work, particularly because it was over Christmas. I am thankful for my union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, and community supporters who made sure we didn’t go without during the time Mayo locked us out.

I think Mayo meant to scare us with their lockout, but they did the opposite. We are as committed as ever to winning what is right for people like us who work in the hospital, the patients we serve and our whole community.

Deann Young

Albert Lea