Volunteers staffing the welcome booth on Day 1 of the convention include (L to R) Megan Lockhart (Painters Local 61), Mary Sansom, Hana Yoshida (SEIU Healthcare) and Miriam Wynn.
Local union volunteers are welcoming the nation’s labor movement to Minneapolis this week and helping the AFL-CIO ensure its biggest event runs smoothly.
About 40 retired and active union members answered the call for volunteers during the AFL-CIO’s 30th Constitutional Convention, which began yesterday and runs through June 10 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
Volunteers are stationed throughout a bustling exhibition space, located just off the meeting floor. The space features vendor booths, informational displays, interactive training spaces, a live stage and more.
Barbara Andrew, a member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, traveled from Rochester yesterday to volunteer with her SEIU sister Leslie Kaup of Albert Lea. As delegates entered the convention space, Andrew and Kaup encouraged them to write their personal definitions of “solidarity” on a poster-filled wall.
For Andrew, talking solidarity with strangers was a welcome opportunity. She works in food service for a Mayo Clinic contractor, where workers organized a union nine years ago – after Mayo outsourced their department.
“I fell in love with unions,” she said. “I’ve seen how it helped me and my fellow co-workers.”
It’s a feeling Mary Sansom, a retired member of Machinists (IAM) Local 1833, has known for five decades.
Greeting delegates and answering questions at the welcome booth yesterday, Sansom said it was exciting to see the faces that make up the labor movement – from IAM’s elected leaders to members of the AFL-CIO’s 64 other affiliated unions – as they entered the convention space.
“I’m a 53-year union member, and this is our legacy coming in,” she said. “I’m feeling really proud right now.”
Some local volunteers had already made new connections on Day 1 of the convention.
A United Steelworkers delegate asked Miriam Wynn, financial secretary of Minnesota-based Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, to record a message of support for workers in Mississippi who will vote soon in a union election.
“Just to know that they are organizing in Mississippi while our union is organizing here in Rochester, it was actually encouraging for me, and hopefully I was encouraging them,” Wynn said. “Labor everywhere, we need to come together, and that’s what’s happening here.”
For other union members, volunteering at the convention was an opportunity to put Minnesota’s best foot forward after Operation Metro Surge.
Posted at the entrance to the convention floor, Southdale Hospital nurse Rachel Andersen, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said the convention buzzed with much-needed “good energy.”
“It fills my cup, after everything Minnesota’s been through, to see that we still care about each other,” Andersen said. “We’ve been saying ‘solidarity’ for years, but this winter really put the rubber to the road, and it was there when we needed it.”
Some delegates were eager to recognize the resilience Minnesota showed over the winter, retired Minneapolis educator Sara Miele said. And Miele, who lives downtown, said she is eager in turn to show them everything else that her city and state have to offer.
“I’m so excited about making sure people have a wonderful experience here – and come back and back and back,” she laughed.
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
Union Advocate 
Leave a comment