With a sea of nurses behind them, representatives from the Minnesota Nurses Association announced Friday that 12,000 nurses will walk away from their jobs on Thursday, June 10 if a contract agreement cannot be reached.

"We feel that this is what is needed in order to get bargaining going again so that we can settle this contract," said Nellie Munn, a nurse and member of the MNA bargaining team.

"We’ve been at this for months now, and there has been no movement," she said.

The nurses union and the 14 hospitals involved in contract negotiations have nearly two weeks to finalize a contract before the one-day strike occurs. Nurses pledged to spend "any and or every day until then" bargaining in order to avoid a strike.