A union in Minnesota that represents nurses is involved in a pitched battle with a health care company, but there’s good news: a Tuesday negotiation session has been scheduled between the two sides after weeks apart.

The Minnesota Nurses Association represents 4,800 nurses, who all face havin to fund their own health insurance plans by Oct. 1 if they can’t reach a deal, according to a TwinCities.com report. Nurses are being asked to downgrade to a worse plan than they had before, and the two sides disagree on how much the downgrade should be.

The strike impacts four hospitals in the region, as well as the Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis. A few hundred nurses have returned to work, and about 1,500 nurses have crossed picket lines to take temporary positions, according to the report.

The union argues in a statement that nurses deserve better terms for the work they do: “Nurses also save the healthcare system money. One study found that the economic value of adding one additional nurse on a unit staffed at the level of providing 7.8 hours of nursing care per patient day is $60,000 per year: ‘annual medical savings per RN include $7400 from preventing nursing sensitive adverse events (91% of which are reduced hospital costs and 9% are reduced costs for professional services and other postdischarge costs); and $38,100 for hospital-related savings and $2500 for professional services savings related to reduced LOS unassociated with preventing adverse events. Productivity benefits to society per additional FTE RN include $10,300 for reduced patient mortality, and $1800 from faster recovery.'”