Union members rallied behind their co-workers at MNHS who were laid off June 28.
Newly unionized workers at the Minnesota Historical Society are pushing back against a round of layoffs at the nonprofit, filing charges with the National Labor Relations Board that accuse management of targeting their member-organizers and failing to bargain impacts of the workforce cuts.
At a rally June 28 outside the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, union members offered support to seven colleagues laid off earlier in the week, and they blasted CEO Kent Whitworth – who walked through the gathering of workers – for balancing the organization’s budget on the backs of frontline staff.
“They say the budget cuts are about planning for the future,” MNHS worker Allie Mitchem said. “Where are you going to get workers if you keep treating us like this?”
Five of the laid-off workers were members of the bargaining unit, and two were from management. All were “intrinsic to the visitor experience and dedicated to their jobs,” according to the MNHS Workers Union, an affiliate of AFSCME Council 5.
Alex Weston, a former program associate laid off by MNHS in June, addressed supporters outside the History Center.
Together, the seven employees had given over 100 years of service to the organization.
But the layoffs came with just two-days notice – and a demand that workers sign away their recall rights, laid out in the union contract, as a tradeoff for severance pay and job coaching.
“I was informed at 11 a.m. on Tuesday that my last day was Friday, and I was ordered to take the remaining time off because they didn’t want me talking to my co-workers, as if my disappearing would just go unnoticed,” Alex Weston, a former program associate, said.
Weston had worked at MNHS for 19 years. Two other program associates laid off in June had given over 20 years to the organization.
Colin Dunn, president of the MNHS Workers Union, said the timing of the layoffs was puzzling, given that MNHS had 14 active job postings at the time. He also noted that the MNHS employee handbook says the organization will give workers two weeks’ notice, in writing, before their position is eliminated.
“They seem to view us as easily expendable, and that’s just so disappointing,” Dunn said. “These are people who are writing interpretive programming. There’s an educational background you need to have, there’s experience you gain over time to know what it’s like to interact with people on historical tours, what you can offer them to expand their horizons while also being entertaining.”
The union announced July 16 that its pushback had drawn a response from MNHS leaders.
“Management is open to discussing the separation terms, and the union is entering into the conversation in good faith and with the hope of finding a cooperative solution,” the statement said.
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
Union Advocate 
It’s horrible to see a non-profit being run as a corporation, the news spin is that layoffs are due to budget cuts, but they have hired 11 Vice Presidents in the Minnesota Historical Society, a private organization which receives millions in Minnesota taxpayer funding, and holds the largest historic collection and maintains our most important historic structures but has little to no oversight.
The real agenda for some time now is to reduce the human interaction at all of the historic sites across Minnesota, decreasing staff, specifically interpreters in living history – demonstrating skills such as laundry, baking, blacksmithing and woodworking, to replace them with signage and self-guided tours.
Which begs the question, where is all the funding going now? Management seems to think no one will miss the military program at Fort Snelling, the blacksmith at the Fur Trading Post, or the holiday costumed programing (already cut) from James J Hill House, but we, the volunteers on the ground, hear the complaints constantly. (specifically from school tour groups which are the sites bread and butter)
Rather than pull away from human interaction at it’s sites, the MNHS needs to lean in, making popular programming for the up and coming generation that loves the Renaissance Festival, Comic cons and re-enactment, this is the future of museums and historic sites, but by the time MNHS comes around, the wealth of knowledge and institutional memory of the sites may be inaccessible.