Defend Frontline Nurses: Bring Back Cliff Willmeng.

Above: Cliff Willmeng talks to media after termination.

“During the opening months of the COVID 19 pandemic, frontline healthcare workers at St Paul's United Hospital began to take measures to protect themselves, their families and the public they serve. The efforts were opposed by management, who among other positions they took, also insisted workers use their personal scrubs instead of the scrubs available at the hospital used by doctors, physician assistants and some nurses. 

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This meant that nurses would have to bring the scrubs they worked in all day home to be washed, adding a potential source of infection to their families. Dozens of nurses refused to do this. Management responded with disciplinary measures, violation of union rights, and intimidation of the frontline workforce. Cliff Willmeng, a union steward, husband, father of two, and nurse of 13 years was fired during these efforts for workplace and patient safety. 

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These battles played out in local and national media. Cliff's termination is the subject of a union grievance set to go to arbitration on January 7th and 8th of 2020 and a whistleblower lawsuit against Allina Health, the parent company of United Hospital.”  

 

To our readers. Below is the text of a petition I hope you will sign and share with your contacts. The petition is at this link. The link below will also take you to a page with more information. Despite having no patient care or attendance issues, Cliff has also been reported to the Minnesota Board of Nursing, a development that potentially threatens his RN license and which requires him to hire legal council now at the cost of $250/hour. 

 

You can also donate  to Cliff Willmeng’s legal defense through a go-fund me page fund at this link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/cliff-willmeng-legal-defense-fund

 

If you belong to a union, a church group, a DSA Chapter or any social organization at all, get your organization to support Cliff’s campaign to get his job back.  Since his termination, Cliff was elected to the Minnesota Nurses Association’s Board of Directors. The president of the Minnesota Nurses Association is Mary Turner and she can be contacted at: Mary.Turner@mnnurses.org

 

During the early months of the COVID 19 pandemic, nurses and other frontline workers fought for patient and workplace safety at Allina Health’s United Hospital in St. Paul, MN. United responded by firing RN and union steward Cliff Willmeng, provoking a whistle blower lawsuit and union arbitration that is set to be heard January 7th and 8th, 2021. Help bring Cliff back to his job at United and defend frontline workers everywhere! 

 The facts:

• On May 8, 2020, RN Cliff Willmeng was fired without a single patient care or attendance issue.
• Prior to his termination, Willmeng was part of a growing number of nurses fighting to protect their patients, their coworkers, and their families from the increasingly dangerous working conditions and medical protocol driven by the COVID 19 pandemic.
• United frontline medical staff communicated their concerns to senior hospital administrators, filed OSHA workplace safety complaints, initiated their own safety protocols, and drove local and national media attention.  
• After nurses’ attempts to compel Allina Health to address workplace and patient safety, Allina Health fired Cliff Willmeng for violating hospital uniform policy. 
• Following his termination, it appears that Allina also reported Willmeng to the Minnesota Board of Nursing, threatening his nursing license and his livelihood.
• Cliff is a husband and father of two, a registered nurse for 13 years, and a union steward in the Minnesota Nurses Association. Allina used his termination to intimidate all frontline workers taking a stand for coworkers and the safety of the public they serve. 

 

We the undersigned call on the Allina Health’s CEO Penny Wheeler, its Board of Directors, and United Hospital management to immediately reinstate Cliff Willmeng to his position in the emergency room of United Hospital. We further call for an end to the intimidation of and retaliation against frontline workers risking their health and their lives during a deadly pandemic. 

 

Thank you in advance for your support

Richard Mellor, for Facts For Working People