In Minnesota, 15,000 nurses are returning to work today after three days spent on picket lines in the largest private sector nurses’ strike in U.S. history. The nurses want pay increases to keep ahead of spiraling inflation, and they say dangerously low staffing levels — and pandemic burnout — have led to low morale that’s driving nurses from the profession. Minnesota Nurses Association President Mary Turner joined picketers outside a children’s hospital in Minneapolis Wednesday.

Mary Turner: “This is a fight for our very profession. And if you guys haven’t heard the study out of Illinois University, 51% of the nurses potentially will leave the bedside as of next year. Fifty-one percent! That is a public health crisis. And so, we’re pushing for a contract that will draw nurses back to the bedside, because we have plenty of nurses, but we have nurses that don’t want to work in the conditions that are out there. And I can say this message to every nurse in every state, and they’d understand what I’m talking about.”