ROCHESTER — Some 1,800 union-represented employees, including 1,600 frontline health care workers at Mayo Clinic Hospital-Saint Marys have something to celebrate: their first scheduled pay raises in nearly two years.
On Friday, a three-member arbitration board announced its ruling, setting terms of a three-year contract for those workers, represented by SEIU Healthcare MN & IA. It features pay raises of at least 16.5% over the life of the contract and includes a minimum $20 hourly wage — something that Mayo now also offers to its non-union employees.
In addition, the union workers will receive retroactive pay for those raises dating back to April 23, 2024, when their last negotiated contract expired. In some individual cases, the back pay will amount to as much as $10,000, according to the union.
SEIU representatives and members announced the new contract in a press event Saturday morning outside of Saint Marys.
“We are so excited to announce that we made some amazing gains here at the hospital,” said Hallie Wallace, SEIU’s lead negotiator on the contract. “This is going to be life-changing for some people. Some of our members are going to making upwards of $16,000 more in 2026 than they made in 2023. … I mean, you can send your child to college with that. I’m really, really excited about that.”
Mayo Clinic spokeswoman Kristy Jacobson issued the clinic’s response to the arbitrator’s decision in a written statement.
“While we believe Mayo Clinic and SEIU would have reached similar results around key issues much sooner had SEIU allowed the bargaining process to continue, we are focused on moving forward with our shared goal of providing world class patient care,” Jacobson wrote. “We value and appreciate our staff for their contributions.”
In addition to the pay increases, the new contract establishes a cap on mandatory overtime, limiting it to 18 hours per two-week pay period, a feature that some workers said will improve their quality of life and the quality of care in the hospital.
Retention of skilled workers has been a challenge in some areas at Saint Marys, said Ashley Rohwer, a certified surgical technologist and leader in the local union. She has been at Saint Marys for nearly 21 years.
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“Last summer, we hired, I want to say, six CSTs, and all of those CSTs are given a very high incentive pay to start,” she said. “Three of them are already gone. … They didn’t even make a year.”
Karrie Ellingson, a surgical patient care assistant and transporter at Saint Marys, was part of the local bargaining committee. She described the negotiating process, which stalled on June 6 and led to the mediated approach, as “brutal” and “punishing.”
Jacobson, meanwhile, described those talks as "productive, and we had reached tentative agreements on several topics."
In any event, when talks broke down on June 6 , the sides were worlds apart. SEIU sought a two-year contract offering raises of 12.5% the first year and 6% in the second year. Mayo’s last offer, a three-year deal, included annual raises between 1.75% and 3.5%.
The arbitrator’s ruling, written by Marlin O. Osthus, a former regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, splits the difference. Its raises are 8% the first year (with some raises as high as 21.5% to reach the new $20-per-hour floor), 4.5% the second year and 4% the third year.
Jacobson noted that the ruling "aligns with wages for SEIU-represented staff at Methodist and how Mayo Clinic adjusted non-union wages over the last three years, with higher increases for staff earning $22 or less an hour."
The arbitration decision is binding and cannot be appealed, Wallace said.
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The new contract for Saint Marys workers is the second piece of union-related news this week involving Mayo Clinic.
Earlier, about 600 union members at Methodist Hospital – also represented by SEIU – voted to allow the threat of a strike to be used as a negotating tactic in their own contract negotiations . The contract there expired on Jan. 31.
The Saint Marys contract runs through April 23, 2027. Position titles that are covered by SEIU there include surgical assistants, processing technicians, materials handlers, linen workers, janitors, telecommunications specialists and many others. The union workers’ last scheduled raise was 2% and took effect on April 23, 2023.
