Howie: Look at this political football, folks

By HOWIE HANSON
Editor & Publisher

Another beautiful morning, another half-cocked union picket line, another chance for me to lean back, puff my chest out and remind you — none of this is new. Heck, if it were a sitcom, we’d already be six seasons deep, recycling jokes and running on leftover donuts.

So here’s the bit you won’t get from the pre-canned union talking points or Essentia’s slick email statements: There. Are. No. Expired. Contracts. These aren’t brave hold-the-line campaigns trying to claw back lost pensions. They’re first contracts. Meaning there’s nothing to “expire.”

That’s like a guy showing up to his first date, screaming she’s late for the wedding.

Want more irony?
Even by slow-motion healthcare standards, this crowd’s been a tad poky. MNA’s been the one pushing out the starting line like a contractor who’d rather fish on Lake Vermilion.

. 1st Street: twiddled thumbs 5 months.

. 2nd Street: kicked cans 4.5 months.

. 3rd Street: padded around aimlessly for 7.5 months.

. Superior: same lazy stroll — 7 months.

. Miller Hill & Solvay: both gave it 5 months to marinate.

Now they’re out there clanging on pots, squinting into news cameras about how long this is all taking.

Meanwhile on the bigger stage...
MNA wants to unionize over 500 advanced practice providers across 70 facilities — a Frankenstein unit so bloated it’d make a DNR-record whitetail blush. That’s your local NPs and PAs, who, inconvenient truth here, keep northern and rural Minnesota from looking like a Civil War field hospital.

Essentia’s playing lawyer ball with the National Labor Relations Board’s Health Care Rule, which basically says: hospitals and clinics shouldn’t be smashed into one bargaining zoo because, you know, patients need care. The NLRB’s Duluth office already yanked a hearing notice back in May, punting the circus to D.C.

So the MNA can twirl signs until Lake Superior freezes over sideways — there won’t be bargaining on that piece until the feds send up a smoke signal.

And the picket lines?
Pure local theater. I guarantee there’ll be the usual slow-motion shots on a local television broadcast of a toddler holding a foam sign. Some earnest reporter will furrow their brow and quote the MNA flak who probably handed them a press sheet already pre-highlighted. Then Essentia will pump out a bullet-pointed statement so stale you could tape it over last year’s and no one would notice.

Here’s the secret:
The rest of us? We still show up for our appointments because, shock of shocks, strep throat doesn’t give a damn about your negotiating stance.

And this old crank right here with the byline? I’ll be around to scribble the next act, too. Smug as ever. Because I’ve been doing this longer than most of these union organizers have been old enough to spell “arbitration.”

So sure, wave the placards. Set up your tired chants. Let Essentia issue their bloodless “patient-first” pressers.

I’ll watch from my ivory tower — coffee in hand — raising one eyebrow just to see which side flinches first.

Because that’s the dirty local secret: around here, winter, hockey heartbreaks and labor scuffles come right on schedule. And your cocky old columnist will be there to write it all down, smirk firmly in place.