Lawmakers take up educators’ call for new insurance pool

March 24, 2026 by

Rep. Liz Reyer of Eagan joins members of Education Minnesota at a Capitol press conference about the Educator Group Insurance Program.

House and Senate authors of a statewide health insurance pool for school employees, one of Education Minnesota’s top priorities this session, outlined their legislation’s path forward last week.

The statewide educators’ union held a day of action at the Capitol March 18 to drum up support for the idea among lawmakers. During a press conference, Rep. Liz Reyer (D-Eagan) and Sen. Mary Kunesh (D-New Brighton) said they hoped to pass bills this session that would survey school districts about the insurance coverage they provide.

The data is necessary, Kunesh said, to calculate costs of the full proposal, known as the Educator Group Insurance Program (EGIP). Kunesh and Reyer said they are aiming for EGIP’s passage in 2027.

“This session, the goal is to vet concepts through committees,” Kunesh said during a press conference with educators at the Capitol on March 18.

Modeled after an existing program that covers State of Minnesota employees and after programs in other states, EGIP is Education Minnesota’s preferred approach to stabilizing school districts’ skyrocketing health insurance costs.

The issue has increasingly become a stumbling block for local unions in contract negotiations, as educators and other school employees are repeatedly forced to choose between absorbing big premium hikes or accepting lower wage increases.

Over 150 union members joined the day of action at the Capitol, and many carried signs bearing the exact amount by which their district’s health insurance costs have increased in recent years – 30% in Mankato, 34% in Lyle, 54% in New Ulm.

By consolidating the purchasing power of every school district into a statewide risk pool, EGIP would cut down on brokerage fees and level the playing field in negotiations with large insurers like UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross MN, advocates say.

“Minnesota’s school districts are small buyers in a market that rewards large ones,” Education Minnesota President Monica Byron said. “Every year, hundreds of school districts negotiate alone against a multi-billion-dollar insurance industry that knows exactly how much leverage it has. Educators pay for that power imbalance in higher premiums, worse coverage and impossible choices.”

Because the risk pool in most school districts is relatively small, they often see a dramatic spike in coverage costs after an employee experiences a health crisis, Byron added. “Every school district in Minnesota is just one sick employee away from a crisis that it cannot manage.”

A high-deductible insurance plan left Glencoe-Silver Lake science teacher Amanda Kottke’s family with steep medical bills after her son’s hospitalization.

That’s what happened to Amanda Kottke, a science teacher in the Glencoe-Silver Lake district. Her son spent 10 “long, terrifying days” at Children’s Hospital last year receiving treatment for complications from a ruptured appendix.

Kottke, who has a high-deductible plan through her employer, acknowledged that concerns about out-of-pocket costs factored into her family’s initial decision to hold off on a $250 trip to the urgent care. But the hospital stay left Kottke with a much larger bill – and feelings of “guilt and trauma” that she now can’t afford to address in therapy.

“We were asked to pay our $10,000 deductible up front, and we couldn’t,” Kottke said. “They then suggested $900 a month until the bill was paid off, and we couldn’t do that either.”

Now her district, which already has seen insurance costs increase 165% over the last six years, is seeing bids for insurance plans next year come in 30% to 50% higher, she said.

The rising cost of their health insurance comes with public costs beyond the strain it creates on districts’ budgets. (The proposal would include a “hold harmless” provision to ensure districts’ costs don’t increase with EGIP.)

Education Minnesota reports that high insurance costs are a leading factor in driving licensed educators away from the profession. Lower-paid school employees, meanwhile, often forego the district’s insurance and look to public programs for coverage.

Kunesh and Reyer, EGIP’s authors in the legislature, said most lawmakers agree that public schools’ rising insurance costs are an urgent problem. Reyer had a message for those who are still skeptical EGIP is the solution.

“They have not offered a systemic solution, and that’s what we need,” she said. “Every day without a solution is another educator choosing between a paycheck and a family’s health care. Minnesota can do better than that.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Detained Guild member’s son attends SOTU as Omar’s guest

February 27, 2026 by

Union member Eustaquio Orozco Verdusco with his godsons. (submitted photo)

The Trump administration’s chaotic, violent surge of immigration-enforcement activity in Minnesota this winter has upended thousands of lives, Gerardo Orozco Guzman’s among them.

But Guzman, 27, had a rare opportunity to bear witness to that devastation when President Trump delivered his State of the Union address Feb. 24, as one of four guests – all impacted by Operation Metro Surge – invited to attend the speech with Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Guzman’s father, Eustaquio Orozco Verdusco, was abducted on his way to work Jan. 9, and he remained in federal detention at press time. Verdusco is an organizer with the worker center CTUL, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha, and a member of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild.

For Guzman, attending the State of the Union was an opportunity to bring “light and awareness” to what’s happening both to his family and to his community.

“It is extremely unfair that my dad was taken by the government,” he said. “It’s unfair that our family is having to go through this. It’s unfair that my Minnesota community is having to go through this still.”

Guzman’s father, known to friends and family as “Paco,” has made a career of helping vulnerable workers fight back against abuses in the construction industry.

CTUL is a resource center for workers who experience wage theft, misclassification and labor trafficking, and the organization has a track record of recovering unpaid wages and helping deliver cases to authorities for investigation.

Guzman has built a career as an advocate, too. A legal assistant and mediator for the Minnesota Attorney General’s office, he was named an “Unsung Legal Hero” by Minnesota Lawyer magazine last year.

Guzman, his mother, his sister and his extended family have been scrambling to pursue every legal option possible to get Paco home since his arrest. Lawyers immediately filed a habeas corpus petition for his release, but it was denied by a judge.

After spending weeks in the notoriously dangerous Camp East Montana detention facility, Paco was transferred to a facility in New Mexico, a move that came with greater access to phone calls, Guzman said.

But the family’s concern grows with each day Paco is detained.

“He calls to check in on us and tell us he’s OK, but with every call he does sound more dejected,” Guzman said. “He recognized, I think, that people who he’s met in detention have been there way longer – eight or nine months, if not longer. As time goes on the tone of his voice is not the same, and noticing that change, it’s heartbreaking to say the least.”

Guzman said the family has settled on a multi-pronged legal approach to get Paco home, but costs are adding up. The family launched an online fundraiser, and 6,000 people have signed onto a petition for Paco’s release.

“You want to have faith in the laws and procedures, and at first my dad was hopeful that he would be released, as he should have been,” Guzman said. “We’ve gotten so much support from more people than I know, but if we can get a little more support, get the right kind of support…

“I’ll talk to anyone and everyone. I just want my dad back with us.”

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Workers call on Fairview, other health systems to adopt best practices for ICE interactions

February 27, 2026 by

Dr. Kaitlin McLean offers a message to community members who have been avoiding health care facilities: “We want you to get the care you need. We are here asking the hospital to support us in caring for you.”

Health care facilities have not been spared the aggressive tactics deployed by federal agents during the recent surge of immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Now, local unions, immigrant-rights groups and lawmakers are demanding health systems adopt new “best practices” to keep patients and workers safe and uphold their rights.

Union nurses, doctors and support staff called a press conference Feb. 20 outside the U of M Medical Center after delivering a list of demands to Fairview, citing unanswered questions and persistent concerns about how the system is navigating the immigration chaos.

Kirby Crow, a Fairview Riverside worker and member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, cataloged a list of incidents workers have witnessed at Fairview facilities, from agents covering up security cameras to verbally and physically intimidating health care workers – even following some to their homes.

“Despite a need for new, improved procedures, Fairview hasn’t offered workers any updated policies in the last few weeks,” Crow said. “So us workers stepped up.”

Workers’ top concern, speakers at the event said, is that community members are foregoing health care to avoid encounters with federal agents.

Kirby Crow, a member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, catalogs the troubling incidents Fairview workers have seen in their facilities since the immigration surge began in late December.

Soon after Operation Metro Surge began in December, workers across the health care industry began sounding the alarm that immigrant patients were avoiding hospitals and clinics, deferring needed care and going without their medications.

“Our No. 1 priority will always be and has always been the safety and well being of our patients,” Dr. Kaitlin McLean, a member of Council of Interns and Residents (CIR-SEIU), said. “It is the hospitals’ job to allow us to do that safely. We need to know that the hospital has our back while we do that important work.”

A coalition of union doctors, nurses and health care workers at Fairview, working with the immigrant-rights group UNIDOS MN, drafted best practices that, they say, would offer assurances to patients fearful of seeking care.

Demands include alerting the public when immigration agents approach a Fairview facility. Workers also want Fairview to provide them with education about patients’ rights under civil detention, and clear protocols to follow when immigration agents arrive at their facilities. That includes requiring agents to sign in, remove any non-medical face coverings and stay out of private or secure areas unless they have a judicial warrant to enter.

“I wish I could tell you with absolute certainty that it is safe for you to leave your home sand come to the hospital,” McLean said. “We want you to get the care you need. We are here asking the hospital to support us in caring for you.”

The proposed best practices also would protect health care workers, barring agents from parking lots, break rooms and other staff spaces and allowing for immediate reassignment from areas immigration agents have entered.

The coalition also wants amendments to Fairview’s attendance policy that would accommodate workers experiencing immigration-related safety or legal emergencies.

“These are phenomenal health care workers that show up every day to serve as a vessel for healing and a helping hand for humanity,” Jamey Sharp, a health care organizer with UNIDOS MN, said.

UNIDOS is organizing with workers in other health care systems, including Hennepin Health Care and North Memorial, to establish strong protocols around immigration enforcement.

“Our goal is simple,” Sharp added. “Hospitals must be places of care, healing and trust – not fear.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Building Trades notch win for prevailing wage in West St. Paul

February 3, 2026 by

photo courtesy IBEW 110

By mobilizing their members and tapping solidarity from the local labor movement, Building Trades unions won an unexpected fight over prevailing wage in West St. Paul last year.

The city has long required developers to pay prevailing wages on any project that receives $50,000 or more in public assistance. But in July council members and the mayor voted narrowly to allow exemptions on certain projects, with an eye toward a housing development at 150 Thompson Ave.

The vote caught Building Trades unions off guard, but it also “kicked us into overdrive,” Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 110 representative Brian Winkelaar said. “We thought West St. Paul understood our issues.”

Electricians were among four crafts that would have been exempted from prevailing wage on the 150 Thompson project, along with plumbers, sheet metal workers and sprinkler fitters.

But other unions in the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council treated the proposed exemption as an attack on their members, too.

Prevailing-wage rules establish minimum hourly rates, plus benefits, that contractors must pay their workers. The rates are determined by an annual survey so that they reflect area standards, and they are specific to each construction trade.

Federal, state and local governments use prevailing-wage laws to ensure public investments support good jobs – and prevent low-road contractors from squeezing workers’ pay to win a public bid.

“This was an opportunity for the West St. Paul City Council to stand up and say, we want livable wages in our community,” St. Paul Building Trades Executive Secretary Don Mullin said. “We asked them to stand up for the middle class, to hold a standard in our neighborhoods – and they held that standard.”

The council originally scheduled a vote on the exemption for 150 Thompson in early September, but Building Trades unions successfully lobbied members to pump the brakes.

In the meantime, union organizers went to work, scheduling meetings with council members, encouraging tradespeople who live in West St. Paul to raise their voices and building support among the broader labor community.

“We had support from the nurses, SEIU, AFSCME, IBEW, the Building Trades,” Winkelaar said. “People said, ‘Even though it might not affect me, we’re standing with them.’

“There’s so much division in our world, whether it’s between parties or between unions, it really was great to see everybody come together.”

When the issue finally came before the council Dec. 8, union representatives and a strong majority of council members had identified a path forward for the 150 Thompson project that also protected prevailing wage.

With a crowd of about 75 union members in the meeting room, the council voted to apply the State of Minnesota’s rules on prevailing wage to 150 Thompson. Those rules allow contractors to hire registered apprentices, who earn less than journey-level tradespeople, to work on projects covered by prevailing wage.

The move will give the developer some relief while ensuring an even footing for union contractors in the bidding process, as the overwhelming majority of registered construction apprenticeship programs are sponsored by unions.

Council Member Robyn Gulley said the vote showed West St. Paul does, in fact, understand labor’s issues.

“One of the reasons that we protect strong wages is that they protect people in the community who work on these projects, and that is incredibly important,” said Gulley, a labor organizer and educator, who has earned an early labor endorsement in this year’s Senate District 65 election. “We cannot sacrifice our workers.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , ,

New state grants support suicide prevention in construction industry

February 3, 2026 by

Text or call 988 to find judgment-free support for mental health, substance use, and more. Or chat with someone at 988lifeline.org.

The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry awarded new grant funding last month to help two organizations tackle a leading safety hazard in the construction industry: mental health.

Minnesota Building Trades unions partnered last year with their employers, represented by the Associated General Contractors (AGC), to push state lawmakers to address the mental-health crisis in their industry, pointing to suicide rates among construction workers that are four times higher than the national average – and even higher among men.

With the combined $750,000 in new funding, two organizations – the AGC of Minnesota Foundation and Suicide Awareness Voices of Education – will create outreach and engagement programs tailored to construction workers, aimed at promoting mental well-being and preventing suicide.

In a statement announcing the grants, DLI Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach said prioritizing construction workers’ mental health “will save lives.”

The new grant program is modeled after a similar initiative, led by the state’s Department of Agriculture, to address higher suicide rates among family farmers.

Both farmers and tradespeople face stressors unique to their communities. For construction workers, they can include working long hours away from home. And employment is cyclical for most; when their trade wraps work on one project, there is no guarantee of a job waiting for them on another.

LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota President and Business Manager Joel Smith, a leading advocate for the DLI’s new grant program, said the macho culture on a construction job site can make some tradespeople hesitant to ask for help dealing with stress.

But the construction industry has changed its culture before, Smith added.

“Thirty-four years ago when I got my start, safety wasn’t emphasized nearly as much,” Smith said during a breakout on mental health during LIUNA’s infrastructure summit last October.

“We changed the culture around safety. Now we need to change that culture around mental health, to remove the stigma and let our people know it’s OK to talk about it. But it’s going to take all of us.”

For its part, the unionized trades and their contractors in Minnesota already have begun the work of changing their approach to mental health, even before lawmakers approved funding for the new grant program.

Many unions and their contractors have begun including mental-health awareness into their first-aid trainings and increasing the number of times workers can access their employee-assistance programs (EAPs). LIUNA rolled out a hardhat sticker – “What’s Underneath Your Hardhat?” – encouraging members to look out for each other’s wellbeing.

With the new grant funding, AGC CEO Tim Worke said, the contractors’ foundation and its partners in labor – and, he hopes, local developers – will expand on work to break stigmas around mental health in the industry.

Plans include an expanded suicide prevention training, with a new, tailored curriculum that will reach more than 1,500 construction apprentices statewide.

During the summit last fall, Worke said the stakes are high not just in terms of saving lives, but for the industry’s success in recruiting and retaining young workers, too.

“I’m absolutely convinced that if we cannot change folks in the industry that do not value mental health, the workforce is going to respond with their feet,” he said. “They’re going to move to another industry that does.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Poll finds ‘staggering’ support among Minnesotans for massive ICE protest

January 30, 2026 by

Thousands march through downtown Minneapolis during the labor-endorsed “Day of Truth and Freedom.”

Faith, labor and nonprofit groups behind the massive “ICE Out of MN” day of action Jan. 23 released polling today that suggests nearly a quarter of Minnesota voters participated in the protest.

Hundreds of businesses closed Jan. 23, as tens of thousands of protesters marked a “Day of Truth and Freedom” in the streets of downtown Minneapolis, marching in subzero temperatures to demand an end to federal immigration operations in Minnesota.

Local labor organizations, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO and area labor councils in the metro, endorsed the massive march, which culminated with a rally at Target Center. And union members showed up for the event in any number of ways – as trained “union peacekeepers” helping direct traffic around the march, as volunteered stagehands preparing the arena, or by taking a stand in their community or workplace.

Earlier in the day, about 100 clergy members were arrested in a civil-disobedience action at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a key site in the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to abduct and rush detained Minnesotans into detention centers.

Organizers behind the one-day action called for “No Work, No School, No Shopping.” The polling found 23% of Minnesota voters participated in some way, with 38% of participants saying they did not go to work and 65% saying they did not shop.

Minister JaNaè Bates, co-director of the progressive faith coalition ISAIAH, called the poll results “staggering.”

“People were willing to take a real hit to their paychecks and demonstrate their resolve for getting ICE out of the state,” Bates said.

She also noted that 33% of Minnesotans polled said they were more likely to shop at a business that closed in solidarity with the day of action. “People will remember who’s standing by us, and people will remember … who businesses choose to stand behind.”

Indeed, the solidarity on display Jan. 23 offered a stark contrast to the silence from Minnesota’s large corporations.

Groups like ISAIAH have ramped up the pressure on corporations like Target, Delta and Starbucks in recent weeks, demanding they refuse to allow federal agents on their properties – and use their clout in Congress to freeze funding for ICE operations.

A delegation of clergy members took those demands into a meeting with Target CEO Brian Cornell on Jan. 22. In a statement after the meeting, they said Cornell’s response fell short of “the urgency this moment requires.”

Some clergy groups are planning sit-ins at Target stores this weekend.

While the day of action called for no work, most labor groups that endorsed the action cautioned union members to follow the terms of their contracts, which typically include no-strike clauses. Still, hundreds of independent restaurants and retailers closed, and weather-related school closings made it easier for families and workers to show up, too.

Educators hold a “teach-in” at City Hall.

As demonstrators gathered two blocks away for the march through Minneapolis, rank-and-file members of the Minneapolis and St. Paul educators unions held a teach-in at City Hall, dramatizing the heartbreaking impacts of “Operation Metro Surge” on their schools.

The somber event featured sing-alongs, readings from a children’s book and a group discussion – guided by a teacher at the whiteboard – about how communities and elected leaders can help students and families who have gone into hiding or, worse, seen family members disappear.

St. Paul and Minneapolis are among metro-area school districts that have adopted a hybrid learning model, and the classroom at the teach-in reflected that reality, with empty desks and floor mats marked with signs depicting the fate of absent students.

“Students and staff have been abducted, schools stalked and teargassed, with classrooms missing more students every day,” said Drake Myers, an education support professional in Minneapolis. “I don’t know a single educator who wants our federal tax money going to pay for this.”

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, noted that messages of solidarity have been pouring into her office since the massive march, including solidarity from unions in other countries.

“Our international labor community is concerned for the welfare of people of their nationalities who are in our communities,” she said. “They are pushing us to fight this fight, especially for people of their nationalities who are being illegally targeted and harassed..

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , ,

MSP Airport unions lead march on ICE terminal as labor shows solidarity with Somali community

December 3, 2025 by

Local 17 organizer Geof Paquette speaks to the crowd of activists outside Signature’s terminal at MSP.

One day after the Trump administration announced it would target the local Somali community with immigration raids, two airport unions led a march on the company that operates Minneapolis-St. Paul International’s charter terminal, where local detainees are being flown in shackles to deportation hubs.

More than 200 activists from labor, community and faith groups gathered Dec. 3 at the Terminal 2 light-rail stop and marched together to the Signature Aviation terminal. There they rallied with speeches and chants, and later tied red ribbons of remembrance to the iron fence that separates the terminal from the public road.

Speakers called on local officials, including the Metropolitan Airports Commission, to find ways to stop the deportation flights.

“These deportations create terror in our neighborhoods and are ripping families apart,” said Geof Paquette, an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 17 who works with immigrant workers at MSP’s bars and restaurants. “They do nothing but sow fear and anxiety in our community. We’ve got to demand better.”

Another union speaker, retired airport janitor and Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26 member George Mullin, offered a firsthand account of the squalid, dehumanizing conditions detainees face in the privately owned holding centers to which they are flown from Signature’s terminal.

George Mullin, a retired SEIU member, traveled to deportation hubs in Louisiana earlier this year.

Mullin joined a delegation, sponsored by SEIU, that traveled to remote detention hubs in Louisiana earlier this year. Those sprawling private prisons, like Signature Aviation and the charter airlines that use its terminals to traffic ICE detainees, are “making money off of cruelty,” Mullin said.

“I’m here today because one of the bright spots of our trip to Louisiana was seeing detained women reacting to us for showing up where no one comes,” he said. “They waved like crazy the whole time.

We got to show them that they are not alone. We see them, and we are with them. Today we’re doing the same thing. To our neighbors who are being put on these planes in chains, likely with no idea where they are going, we see you.”

Labor’s leading role in the march on Signature Aviation illustrates how unions here – and across the U.S. – are showing solidarity with immigrant communities under attack, while also working in coalition to defend people’s rights and hold the Trump administration accountable.

Demonstrators tie ribbons to the iron gate outside the Signature terminal.

Local SEIU unions were among those that reacted swiftly after President Trump began spewing hateful rhetoric at Somali immigrants. In a Cabinet meeting, Trump called them “garbage” and said they “contribute nothing” – an insult belied by work local SEIU members do as school employees, health care workers and property-service workers.

“We could not be prouder or luckier to have many Somali Minnesotans as coworkers and courageous leaders in our struggle to end poverty wages for everyone,” Minnesota’s SEIU locals said in a statement. “As usual, Trump is saying things that aren’t true and claiming powers he doesn’t have. We will make sure all our members have the tools they need to protect their rights.”

To that end, the state’s labor movement has been helping stage training sessions in nonviolent, direct action, supporting immigrant-rights and progressive groups as they brace for an increased federal presence in the Twin Cities. The first session in November drew an overflow crowd, prompting the groups to schedule another for Dec. 7.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said that solidarity demands labor mobilize to meet the moment.

“Union members refuse to let anyone, even the President of the United States, divide us based on what we look like, where we were born, or how we pray,” she said. “President Trump and his cronies are hoping that working people will forget that immigrants aren’t standing between us and a better life – billionaires are. We refuse to let them break our solidarity.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Community, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Families, educators, food shelves brace for SNAP cutoff: ‘This is a policy choice’

October 31, 2025 by

Matteo Halbesleben speaks at a press conference outside a St. Paul food shelf.

Matteo Halbesleben of Minneapolis is among 42 million people nationwide, including 440,000 in Minnesota, who will see food assistance from the federal government, known as SNAP, disappear tomorrow.

Benny Roberts is executive director of the Hallie Q. Brown Food Shelf in St. Paul, where demand already has doubled this week, prompting staff to put out a call for donations – money, food, clothes, toiletries and volunteer help.

Devina Moore teaches at nearby Benjamin E. Mays elementary school, where over half of students qualify for free or reduced school lunch. She and other educators are trying to keep things “as consistent as possible” for children – 150,000 of whom rely on SNAP in Minnesota – while scrambling to connect families with other resources.

As they brace for the impacts on their families and their community, Halbesleben, Roberts, Moore and others are also calling out the driving force behind the SNAP cutoff and ongoing federal government shutdown.

“Greed,” Roberts said during a press conference outside his food shelf in the city’s Rondo neighborhood, arranged by unions, faith groups and progressive organizations.

“This isn’t a charity issue,” St. Paul school board member Erica Valliant added. “This is a policy choice.”

Sitting on $5 billion

The motive behind that choice, union leaders say, is especially callous – an attempt by President Donald Trump and Republicans to use hunger as political leverage. Why else would the administration refuse to release more than $5 billion in SNAP contingency funds?

The AFL-CIO and 26 labor unions today sent a letter demanding Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins release the contingency funding. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said Trump is “deliberately inflicting pain on workers by cutting jobs, slashing food assistance and ripping away livelihoods.”

“The administration could continue SNAP without a hitch,” she added. “Instead, it’s inflicting cruelty on people and treating this crisis as some sick political game.”

SNAP cuts will only add to the pain inflicted on workers during the shutdown.

The administration has forced 730,000 federal workers to do their jobs without pay, locked 670,000 federal workers out of their jobs, threatened to destroy 130,000 health care jobs and sidelined hundreds of thousands of workers in construction, transportation and energy by canceling infrastructure projects.

Pain spreads

As the shutdown enters a second month, more Minnesotans, like Halbesleben, will feel the pain.

He began accessing SNAP benefits several years ago, after a string of health crises – skin cancer, reconstructive surgery and a car accident – left him unable to work. Halbesleben is now able to work part time, but still cannot stand for more than four hours without needing to lie down for a physical-therapy exercise that resets his rib cage.

“My story is my own, but there are other stories out there – people who have families who are trying to keep their kids fed, elderly (people) who can’t work anymore and whose retirement doesn’t pay enough for them to (buy) food.”

He said SNAP benefits allow him to put money he does earn toward keeping his home. He already lost the home where lived at the beginning of his health troubles.

Valliant and Moore said they worry that losing SNAP benefits will create a similar snowball effect for SPPS families, making it even harder to afford housing, transportation, energy and other costs.

“It’s overwhelming to see what our families are already going through, the needs that they already have,” Moore said. “Our youngest citizens are being affected the most, and they can’t do for themselves.”

‘We need community’

Valliant noted that Minnesota students will continue to have access to free breakfast and lunch on school days, and Gov. Tim Walz and some counties have tapped emergency funds to help prepare local food shelves like Hallie Q. Brown for a surge in demand.

But it won’t replace SNAP.

“For every meal a food shelf provides, SNAP provides nine,” Valliant said. “We’d be hard pressed to replace that with donations and good will alone, and we should not have to.”

Roberts agreed, calling the shutdown a continuation of “overt and covert practices that pick on the vulnerable for the profit of the comfortable” – a nod to the political fight behind the government shutdown, which pits tax cuts for the wealthy against funding that keeps clinics open and health insurance affordable.

“We’re going to brace for harm – in community,” Roberts said. “We’re going to support each other – in community. We’re going to do our best, but we need community.”

Looking to access food, donate or volunteer with a local food shelf? Click here for a map of locations across Minnesota.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ramsey County workers fight to save detox services: ‘It’s life or death’

October 23, 2025 by

Community members rally outside the Ramsey County Detox Center.

Workers and community members staged a demonstration outside the Ramsey County Detoxification Center in St. Paul on Tuesday, protesting the county’s plan to wind down operations by the end of this year.

Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) criticized county leaders for scrapping the Detoxification and Withdrawal Management program during a substance-abuse crisis in the community.

“It’s life or death,” said Randy, a peer support specialist at the facility who asked that his last name not be published. “I know for a fact that there are people, if we do close, that have less of chance of just surviving. That’s not to be dramatic, but there are people who are really going to be in dire straits without our program.”

[Sign AFSCME’s petition to save Detox Services here.]

Shutting down the detox program will trim about $2 million from the annual budget, according to the county, which plans to partner with community providers to deliver detox services moving forward.

Counties are required to ensure detox services are available, but not to run their own facilities.

But workers at the rally voiced concerns about what those partnerships look like in practice – and whether community agencies are ready to absorb the clients Ramsey County begins turning away Jan. 1.

“They continue to push the narrative that there will be plenty of community providers out there, but all of the community providers are still asking us, what are they going to do when this is done?” nurse supervisor Channa Peters said.

There are no other detox facilities in the east-metro area, Peters added, and surrounding counties already steer their residents in need of services to the St. Paul site, located near Regions Hospital. After it closes, the nearest detox center will be at 1800 Chicago Ave. S. in Minneapolis.

Randy, a steward with AFSCME Local 151, said he worries that potential privatization of the services Ramsey County currently provides could jeopardize access for unhoused, uninsured and underinsured people in the community.

“If you get somebody that’s for-profit to come in and do these services, where’s their motivation to serve those most vulnerable people?” he asked.

The closure will eliminate about 43 positions at year’s end. The layoffs are poised to hit about a year after the detox program ramped up hiring to confront the opioid epidemic.

Already this year, the program has made contact with 1,700 clients, and it is on pace to serve about 1,900. That’s up from 1,567 last year and 1,269 in 2023.

Still, the county says its in-house program “has underperformed expected financial targets year-over-year and has had significant deficits for several years.”

But staff members say those targets were never laid out clearly by management, while the county’s inability to hire nurses has forced it to pay contractors at a much higher rate, inflating the program’s expenses.

“We know that we’re not going to be a moneymaking program, but we’ve saved people’s lives,” Peters said. “We had people stand up at the last board meeting and talk about how  having a detox here has opened the door to becoming a homeowner in this county.”

Randy said he understands the financial challenges Ramsey County faces, “particularly with the cuts that we know are coming down from the federal level.” But he disputed the county’s characterization of detox services as ineffective or inefficient.

His message to county commissioners: “We probably are your best effective bet to do this if you can figure out a way to fund us. Have you done everything you can to figure that out?”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pipefitters turn out for union’s annual Heat’s On service day

October 20, 2025 by

Elected officials and labor leaders join union members for a group photo after the Heat’s On 2025 welcome breakfast.

Local Pipefitters unions kick off their Heat’s On service day each year with a breakfast buffet in the conference room of a hotel in Roseville. So many union volunteers showed up this year that some had to eat in the lobby.

It was as big a turnout as anyone in St. Paul Pipefitters Local 455 or Minneapolis Local 539 could remember seeing since Project Heat’s On got started in 1986, and that’s good news for the low-income, senior and disabled homeowners who received furnace maintenance and repairs at no cost Oct. 4.

Union volunteers provided service to homeowners identified by two Community Action Partnership agencies. Union contractors, members of the Minnesota Mechanical Contractors Association, covered the cost of materials needed for the repairs.

In addition to inspecting homeowners’ furnaces, union members checked for dangerous heat-related health conditions and replaced smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors.

Local 455 apprentices Benjamin Mullin (L) and Adam Stehr inspect the boiler at a home in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood.

Union apprentices helped boost turnout for Heat’s On this year. Adam Stehr and Benjamin Mullin, first-year apprentices with Local 455 who paired up this year, said the service day offered an opportunity to hone their skills while giving back to the community.

“For me, it’s an opportunity to learn a little bit,” said Stehr, whose employer works in building and construction. “Working with someone on the service side, it’s cool to get out and see different things. In piping there are so many routes.”

Mullin does work for a commercial and residential service contractor, and he walked Stehr through the steps of inspecting the boiler of a house in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, their first of two service calls planned that day.

“Something I was always taught was it costs nothing to be kind, and you should look for ways to help others in the community,” Mullin said. “That’s what this day is all about.”

Heat’s On has given back over $4 million in volunteer work hours and repairs over the last four decades.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , ,
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