Macalester staff members celebrate their successful organizing drive. (MAPE photo)
Macalester College staff members voted to unionize this summer in an organizing drive that gained urgency after the 2024 presidential election.
The bargaining unit brings together over 200 non-faculty, non-supervisory employees – both full- and part-time – at the liberal-arts college in St. Paul. They voted to join the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) by a 99-84 margin.
Talk among co-workers about forming a union shifted to serious organizing last November, organizers said, after President Donald Trump’s victory.
Trump’s campaign rhetoric was hostile toward higher education, and since taking office his administration has sought to bully colleges and universities with executive orders, legal threats and funding clawbacks.
For many non-faculty workers at Macalester, their jobs suddenly felt a lot less secure on Nov. 6.
“We sort of figured we had to act now or never,” Jeremy Meckler, a self-described “staffulty” member in the school’s Media and Cultural Studies department, said.
“Faculty typically have some type of contract protection, whether a yearly contract for contingent faculty or tenure,” Meckler added. “But if financial cuts come to an institution of higher education, often the easiest people to pick off are the staff who are at-will employees.”
With support from MAPE, Macalester workers began circulating union cards in December. By May, they had enough support to request voluntary recognition from the school, but administrators declined, prompting workers to petition the National Labor Relations Board for an election.
Workers voted June 10, and the NLRB counted ballots June 23 at the agency’s offices in Minneapolis.
Meckler, a Macalester alum who lives in Minneapolis, was among several union supporters on hand to observe the count. He said their emotions ran the gamut, from “shock and disbelief and excitement” to “relief that we’d really done it.”
“Mostly, I’m just really excited that we won – that a majority of staff, even despite this election happening in the summer when a lot of people weren’t around, showed up to say that they wanted to be in a union and that we’re stronger and safer together,” he added. “It makes me feel good about the place I work.
“As an alum, I think the values of the institution really are in line with the union. It’s a progressive college that teaches the collective value of working together to make the world a better place, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do with our union.”
The new bargaining unit will survey membership and begin planning for first-contract negotiations when the school year begins in the fall.
Macalester’s student workers – over 1,100 strong – voted to unionize earlier this year after a two-year campaign.
Predominantly a public-sector union, MAPE represents over 1,000 staff in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.
This article appeared in The Union Advocate’s August 2025 issue.
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
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