LIUNA summit digs into Minnesota’s infrastructure outlook

October 16, 2025 by

State Sen. Erin Murphy accepts an Infrastructure Champion award from LIUNA Local 563 Business Manager Joe Fowler (L) and LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota President Joel Smith.

Advocates for public infrastructure gathered Oct. 10 at the Minnesota Laborers’ Training Center in Lino Lakes to take stock of the state’s investment needs and celebrate recent legislative gains.

The 2025 LIUNA Infrastructure Summit and Open House, sponsored by LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, brought together over 100 representatives of unions, contractors, state agencies and other infrastructure-minded groups.

The half-day event covered topics like water and energy infrastructure, incentives for high-road housing development, workforce development and initiatives within the industry to increase workers’ access to mental-health resources.

Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan addressed the summit, and LIUNA officers presented awards recognizing lawmakers and the union’s lobbying partners for their work to strengthen and expand prevailing wage and secure new investments in transportation, water, energy and other infrastructure needs statewide.

Walz noted that the awards recognized both Democrats and Republicans. He called it a testament to LIUNA’s ability to work “bipartisanly” in support of public investments and standards like prevailing wage, ensuring infrastructure jobs go to safe, highly trained and fairly compensated tradespeople.

“It’s a really difficult job right now to try to find common lines, and LIUNA and the Building Trades have been doing it year after year,” Walz said.

Earlier this year, Walz signed a $700 million infrastructure jobs bill into law. It will chip away at a backlog of requests from communities and agencies across the state that has surpassed $7 billion.

The governor struck a hopeful note that lawmakers will continue to invest.

“I think we have set a precedence with this leadership that’s here at the Legislature that it just makes good sense to continue to pass robust bonding bills every year to make sure that we’re staying ahead of what needs to be done,” he said.

In anticipation of that work, LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, which represents about 14,000 workers, will expand its apprenticeship and training programs to include a second campus in North Branch, where the union recently acquired 96 acres.

The Lino Lakes facility already operates Minnesota’s largest registered apprenticeship program. The site delivers about 150,000 training hours each year, LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota President Joel Smith said, at no cost to taxpayers.

“This campus represents our commitment to connecting Minnesotans, including more women, people of color and veterans, to lifelong careers with family-sustaining wages, excellent benefits and dignified retirement,” Smith said.

Recipients of LIUNA’s 2025 Infrastructure Champion awards included two state lawmakers, Sen. Judy Seeberger (D-Afton) and Rep. Nathan Nelson (R-Hinckley), who authored legislation that appropriates $1 million to promote mental-health initiatives in the construction industry, where suicide rates are over three times higher than the U.S. average.

State Reps. Kaela Berg (D-Burnsville) and Mary Franson (R-Alexandria), Sens. Jen McEwan (D-Duluth), Rob Kupec (D-Moorhead), Grant Hauschild (D-Hermantown) and Erin Murphy (D-St. Paul), and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith also received awards.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Unions join coalition pushing ‘yes’ vote on administrative citations in St. Paul

September 24, 2025 by

Representatives of labor, faith and community organizations participating in the Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul coalition hold a kickoff event outside City Hall.

St. Paul unions are teaming up with labor and community groups this fall on a campaign to advance administrative citations from the general election ballot to the capital city’s charter.

The Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul campaign launched with a press conference outside City Hall on Aug. 27. Leaders of labor and faith groups joined workers and tenants in making the case for a “yes” vote on the ballot question before St. Paul voters this fall.

By passing the initiative, voters would confirm the St. Paul City Council’s unanimous vote last spring amending the charter to allow enforcement of certain ordinances through civil fines, rather than criminal charges.

The proposal emerged from the city’s Charter Commission, which voted overwhelmingly late last year to advance it to the council. But opponents collected enough signatures to put the question before voters Nov. 4.

At the kickoff event, Vote Yes leaders said they’re confident the more people learn about administrative citations, the more likely they are to support them. That means education – through press coverage, community engagement and the campaign’s website – will be key to their success.

“The public doesn’t know a whole lot about this,” Rick Varco, political director of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, acknowledged. “We’re working with community organizations to educate their members and supporters, and we hope people who are looking into what this complex thing is will use those resources to decide to vote ‘yes.’”

Some people, though, are familiar with St. Paul’s inability to enforce ordinances with civil penalties – often because they’ve found themselves waiting on a response to code violations that, in most other cities, would not play out in the criminal-justice system.

Of the state’s 25 largest cities, only St. Paul does not allow for administrative citations.

The city’s police department can issue fines for parking tickets and related violations under state law, and the city can assess fines to recover the cost of some property-related matters, like sidewalk shoveling.

James Blake shares their experience as a renter trying to hold a landlord accountable for unsafe conditions.

But advocates say the city needs more power to take swift action in enforcing labor standards and housing codes, preventing bad employers and corporate landlords from dragging the process out in court.

That’s what recently happened to James Blake after moving into their dream apartment in St. Paul. Blake soon discovered wood rot and mold in the kitchen and a moth infestation in the apartment’s built-in cabinets.

Requests for repairs went unanswered. Blake reported several code violations to the city, which began legal proceedings against the company, but nothing changed, they said, until Blake made the decision to move out four months into their lease.

“The rental company violated multiple deadlines from the city inspectors and even a court order to make repairs,” Blake said. “Watching them face zero consequences left me helpless and exhausted.”

The city’s current structure, advocates say, too often forces renters like Blake – and workers who experience wage theft – to seek relief through the legal system.

“Try to see what kind of lawyer you can hire with my paycheck,” Blake said. “I don’t think I deserve to live with mold, pests and an unusable kitchen because I can’t afford a lawyer.”

Minister JaNaé Bates, co-Executive Director of the progressive faith organization ISAIAH, said administrative citations will make St. Paul a more equitable place to live and work. For residents who commit minor infractions, the change allows them to avoid criminal proceedings, while tenants and workers can leverage real, immediate consequences when powerful bad actors violate their rights.

“Right now, our existing enforcement mechanisms fall hardest on working families and communities of color, while wealthy corporations with deep pockets and legal teams can delay and dodge accountability,” Bates said. “Administrative citations level the playing field.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

For Macalester staff, union drive gained urgency after Nov. 5

July 24, 2025 by

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

Filed Under: Community, Organizing Tagged With: , , ,

MN nurses make contract gains despite headwinds

July 24, 2025 by

Nurses picket outside United and Children’s hospitals in St. Paul during their 2025 contract campaign.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association who work at 11 hospitals in the Twin Cities area voted this month to ratify new union contracts that will provide some stability as health systems navigate historic federal funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax-cut bill.

Metro nurses settled with their hospitals after a marathon bargaining session that ended July 3, as Republicans in Congress were falling in line behind a bill expected to slash over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, both critical sources of revenue for hospitals.

The timing was no coincidence, according to Fairview Southdale nurse Rachel Andersen, a member of her bargaining unit’s negotiations team and vice president of National Nurses United.

“When we found out that awful bill was passed, it was like the rug was pulled from under us,” she said. “We had to pivot, to figure out where do we go from here and what’s in our nurses’ best interests.”

Still, the contracts include several gains for metro nurses, including 10% raises over the next three years, new tools to address workplace violence and requirements that hospitals provide coverage for nurses when they go on breaks, which will become mandatory under a new state law.

Beginning Jan. 1, employers must allow employees scheduled for six or more consecutive hours a break of at least 30 minutes. Currently, employees working eight or more consecutive hours must be permitted”sufficient time to eat a meal.”

It’s not the strict staffing minimums that MNA members have been lobbying for over the last two decades, but forcing hospitals to build break nurses into their staffing will help address burnout, Andersen said.

“It’s going to be such a relief because one of our biggest points of burnout is when we work 8-, 10-, 12-hour shifts but the hospital does not have any procedures for how we’re going to get our breaks,” she said. “In the ICU, I have to take four patients who are on life support to give my co-worker a break, and obviously that is not a safe situation. Then I have to find another nurse to do the same thing when it’s my turn.

“Now we’ll have nurses scheduled to come in and provide us with those breaks, so you can eat your lunch and rest and get off your feet.”

Nothing came easy for MNA members in this round of negotiations, but Andersen said union members’ willingness to show support for their bargaining team – at informational picketing June 4 and, later that month, in a strike-authorization vote – put pressure on the hospitals to compromise.

“It took eight or nine sessions for them to come to the table with the intent to productively bargain,” Andersen said. “After our informational picket, the next day we got more dates to bargain. After our strike vote, that was the first time they passed a meaningful economic package to us.”

MNA President Chris Rubesch said the union isn’t giving up on the fight for staffing minimums that ensure safe patient care. He noted that this was the first round of bargaining in which MNA members voted safe staffing as their No. 1 priority, over wages.

“We’ve been fighting an uphill battle,” he said. “The campaign may be over for now in the Metro, but the fight for safe staffing and patient care is far from over.”

This article appeared in The Union Advocate’s August 2025 issue.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Tradeswomen honored at local ceremony as Trump halts efforts to diversify industry

July 23, 2025 by

Union tradespeople from across Minnesota gathered at a White Bear Lake banquet facility June 5 to celebrate winners of the 2025 Women Building Success Awards, which recognize women forging careers in an industry long dominated by men.

Minnesota Building Trades unions founded Women Building Success (WBS) in 2017 to recognize and promote the achievements of women in their ranks, in the hopes of drawing more.

Experts have long argued that attracting more women to the construction trades would help reduce broader pay disparities, as skilled tradespeople – particularly union members – earn family-sustaining wages with access to health and pension benefits.

The kind of outreach, community-building, mentorship and support that WBS offers women in construction is critical to getting women to enter the skilled trades – and keeping them there, experts say.

Initiatives like WBS and Tradeswomen Build Nations, launched by North America’s Building Trades Unions 15 years ago, have helped drive an increase the number of women working in construction, by nearly 30% between 2018 and 2023, according to Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

But federally funded programs that look to build on that success face an uncertain future. Earlier this year, the National Taskforce on Tradeswomen’s Issues and five Building Trades unions issued a joint statement calling on Congress to maintain funding for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau and the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) program.

Both the Women’s Bureau and WANTO have been “instrumental” in creating pathways for women to enter male-dominated fields like construction, the organizations say, particularly in supporting pre-apprenticeship programs, which create opportunities to try out a trade before fully committing.

But since President Trump took office in January, the Labor Department has terminated WANTO grants, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s budget request for 2026 would zero out funding for the Women’s Bureau, which she called a “relic of the past.”

WBS, self-funded by unions, isn’t likely going anywhere – and that’s a good thing for local tradeswomen, including these 2025 award winners, profiled below.

Apprentice of the Year

Ironworkers Local 512 apprentice Michaela Oelkers, 29, began welding at 18, earning a Certified Welding Inspector credential on her own time while working two jobs. When her boss at a non-union shop told her they didn’t need another CWI on staff, Oelkers acted on a friend’s suggestion to check out the Ironworkers.

Pete Teigland, the local’s apprenticeship training director, is glad she did. “Michaela represents everything we look for in an apprentice ironworker,” he said. “She has a great attitude, is hard working and wants to be good at whatever task is laid in front of her.”

The award came as a surprise to the third-year apprentice from Baldwin, Wis., but she left the awards ceremony feeling “hyped up,” she said.

“The women are all so positive and couldn’t be more supportive. I wanted to know, are there tips and tricks for how to keep your mindset so focused? And how the hell did they do it for so long?”

Oelkers said being the only woman on a jobsite can be “a pain in the ass sometimes,” but she keeps her sense of humor.

“I’m not going to lie, they’re big and burly, and frankly they’re kind of gross,” she said. “But the men I’ve worked with have been so good and willing to teach the next generation (of apprentices), so there’s an upside and a downside. And hey, women can be hormonal and annoying as well.”

Journey Worker of the Year

Heidi Loesch, 61, of Shell Lake, Wis., retired after a nearly 40-year career as an operator two years ago. The member of Operating Engineers Local 49 didn’t take the traditional apprenticeship pathway, instead attending technical college in Staples after graduating from high school to gain the skills she would need as an operator.

Loesch had no idea Women Building Success existed until Melissa Vandal, a dispatcher with Local 49, asked if she could nominate Loesch for an award. At the ceremony, another woman who, like Loesch, worked for Bolander Construction approached Loesch’s daughter, Megan, to say she had been hearing about her mother for years.

“It was interesting to learn that you were kind of mentoring everybody along the way – whether you knew it or not,” Loesch said. “No women were in the field when I started – that I ran across anyway.”

What kept her going? “I just loved my job, and I was pretty good at it,” she said. “And there are a lot of guys out there that will tell you that, too. If I was going to worry about the guy-girl ratio, probably I wouldn’t have gotten out of vo-tech.”

Women’s Advocate

Rachel Malmer, a member of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 110 who works at the wastewater treatment plant in St. Paul, is blunt about what attracted her to the trade: “money and insurance.” But the 33-year-old from Bay City, Wis., has thrived in several roles since joining the union in 2017, volunteering with the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus and representing members on several committees.

As a member of the executive board, Malmer sees new apprentices and members being sworn into the union, and she makes a point of reaching out to women taking the oath.

“A lot of times you’re the only woman on the job site, and let’s just say some people suck,” Malmer said. “So having someone to talk through that or work through things – people who have experienced it and know different ways to navigate things – it helps. I want them to know that they have a support system.”

A self-described “behind-the-scenes person,” Malmer was not eager for her moment in the spotlight at the WBS awards. “I was mad,” she said. “I don’t like getting up in front of people, let alone talking in front of people or talking about myself, really. I’m just doing what I feel like people are supposed to do.”

Tradeswomen in Leadership

Two tradeswomen shared the leadership honor this year: Erica Hartse of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 34, and Colleen Bibeau, an instructor at the Laborers Training Center in Lino Lakes.

Hartse, a 32-year-old from Lindstrom, recently took an office job at Local 34 after working 10 years in the field, starting in 2014. That’s when she left her job as customer-service representative to join a pre-apprenticeship program. She joined Local 34 soon after, but said she wishes she had learned about career opportunities in the trades sooner.

“My biggest gripe is that it was never really posed as an option in high school, or maybe I would have taken a different path earlier on in life,” Hartse said. “Maybe I would have seen it as a viable option sooner.”

Hartse, who serves as Local 34’s vice president, called the experience of winning the WBS award “overwhelming but exciting.” She said she appreciates the organization’s work to create space for women in the trades. “Seeing people relatable to you is so important,” she said. “I can hear a guy talking about careers like this, but to have that real success story in front of you, then it’s real.”

Bibeau, who lives in North Branch, joined the Laborers in 1999. She was working two jobs and raising three kids on her own, with no child support. “My kids needed to have a mom more,” she said. “I needed more money.”

She worked in the field until 2013, when she applied for an instructor’s position at the training center, teaching safety on the job.

“I love getting to work with apprentices,” she said. “I get to see a lightbulb go off every week with my students.”

Now 59, Bibeau has seen firsthand the how the industry has changed to become more inclusive of women, and she hears about it from the apprentices who come through her classroom, too.

“I ask them all the time, ‘How many women are working with you guys?’” she said. “And there’s always multiple women on the jobsites, which I’m so happy to hear.”

This article appeared in the August 2025 issue of the Saint Paul Union Advocate.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Member support, stories turned tide for state workers in tough round of talks

July 22, 2025 by

Members of AFSCME Council 5’s contract action team support the bargaining committee before a session with the state.

Negotiators for the State of Minnesota and unions representing nearly 40,000 state workers reached tentative agreements June 27 on new contracts that will raise wages, preserve longevity pay hikes and, in a big win for union members, make no changes to their health insurance.

Union members who served on the bargaining team for AFSCME Council 5, which represents about 18,000 state workers, said the state’s demands from the outset of talks included an overhaul of health benefits that would have increased workers’ share of the costs.

“The plan shifts they wanted to do would have shifted thousands of dollars onto our members,” Council 5’s lead negotiator, Joel Hoffman, said. “It would have been terrible.”

With the state bracing for federal funding cuts and a projected budget shortfall in the next biennium, unions anticipated a difficult round of contract negotiations. But even experienced negotiators like Hoffman, a lab assistant at Moorhead State who completed a fifth stint on the bargaining team, were taken aback by the severity of the employer’s demands.

In addition to the health plan changes, state negotiators balked at wage increases and wanted to pause workers’ step increases, too. Steps are like longevity bonuses, giving workers a pay bump on the anniversary of their hiring date until they reach the top of the pay scale.

“We’ve had challenging cycles before, but not like this,” Hoffman said. “All of it together, it was just unacceptable, untenable. We couldn’t deal with it.”

It took 215 hours at the bargaining table, but union members succeeded in moving the state off its demands for takebacks, preserving their steps and their health insurance – and winning raises of 1.5% this year and 1.75% in 2026.

Council 5 said in a statement that every worker in the bargaining unit will see a net gain on their paycheck, and the bargaining team voted unanimously to recommend members vote to ratify the deal in balloting this month.

AFSCME, MAPE team up

Union negotiators cited two factors as key to securing a contract they could recommend: a visible, vocal pool of support from rank-and-file members and unshakable solidarity with the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE), which reached a tentative with the state covering over 18,000 workers on the same day as AFSCME.

“They were in the same position as us, and we decided we were going to stick together and have solidarity between the two unions,” Hoffman said. “If they tried to divide us, we weren’t going to have it. We would meet periodically to make sure we’re on the same team, and we had rallies together.”

The unity was especially important in negotiations over health benefits, which bring together over 10 bargaining units at the same table with the state.

When those talks bogged down, union negotiators tapped their “Contract Action Team,” rank-and-file members who had signed up earlier in the year to support their bargaining team. They joined union rallies and showed up at negotiations to send a message to the state – and the Walz administration – that workers were watching the talks.

Jes Shimek, an assistant art studio manager at Anoka-Ramsey Community College in Coon Rapids, credited the team with being intentional about member outreach from the start of the contract campaign.

“They were organizing rallies and a gauntlet during push week and all kinds of outreach – phone banking, workplace actions – throughout this process,” Shimek said. “We communicated more with our members. They could see that they needed to help us fight to not go backwards.”

Getting personal

The turning point in bargaining, Local 2829 President Curtis Seelen said, was when Shimek and two other state employees offered up personal stories that drove home the importance of keeping health insurance affordable.

“Jes brought in her medical supplies and showed just how draconian the state’s health insurance would be to the individuals who work every day to make Minnesota a great place to live,” Seelen said. “I think it was putting a face to all the state workers that keep Minnesota functioning that really helped us turn the tide and prompt the state to drop their more egregious proposals.”

“Two other women, Jess Langhorst and Kate Ella, told their stories too,” Shimek, a member of AFSCME Local 4001, said. “The state’s team was always very cordial to us throughout the process, but this was the first time that we saw emotion from them – a crack in that exterior.

“Right after we shared our stories, everybody walked out of the room to this gauntlet of AFSCME and MAPE members standing silently with their signs, and that was the turning point. We started back the next morning and worked all the way through that night until we reached a tentative agreement at 6:10 in the morning.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

GOP’s Medicaid cuts would raise costs for everyone, union report finds

June 18, 2025 by

Kerry Adelmann, a home care worker and member of SEIU Healthcare MN & IA, shared what Medicaid cuts would mean to her family. Health care workers joined community and faith leaders today on the Capitol steps in St. Paul to demand Republicans in Congress walk back historic cuts to Medicaid included in their budget bill, which President Trump wants on his desk by July 4. 

Meanwhile, a new analysis from the AFL-CIO warns those cuts will make health care less affordable not just for the 7.8 million people projected to lose their benefits, but also for the 179 million Americans with employer-sponsored health coverage – by as much as $485 annually per person. 

That’s because, experts say, people without insurance still get sick, but they are more likely to show up in urgent-care clinics and emergency rooms, driving up costs across the health care system. 

“They’re going to go without care until they have to show up to the hospitals that are required to provide that emergency care,” Jessica Intermill, an activist with Protect Our Care Minnesota, said. “But if this big, bad-for-Americans bill passes, those hospitals and doctors won’t get paid for their work. 

“You can’t stop paying for $700 billion worth of care in the United States without a catastrophic impact.” 

That’s the amount by which the House version of the bill, passed last month, would cut Medicaid. A Senate version that cleared a key committee hurdle earlier this week would make even deeper cuts, forcing difficult decisions onto hospitals and state governments in order to close the gap. 

Rachel Anderson is a vice president of National Nurses United.The Walz administration projects that Minnesota will lose about $500 million in Medicaid funding annually under the GOP budget. 

The state’s Medicaid director, John Connolly, said the bill advancing through the Senate would be “even worse,” with new paperwork requirements and other administrative hurdles that will make it harder for eligible people to access – and maintain – benefits. 

“Disenrollment,” Connolly added, is very much the point of the legislation, which aims to “shrink the number of people with Medicaid coverage, regardless of their need or eligibility status.” 

In addition to making health care less affordable, the Republican budget is likely to spark widespread job losses as states and hospitals look to absorb the loss of federal funds.  

More than 600,000 front-line health care workers could be fired, the AFL-CIO analysis found, and funding for other state-budget priorities, like schools, public safety and infrastructure projects, could be in jeopardy. 

If there’s good news to be found in the Republicans’ so-called “big, beautiful bill,” it comes for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, who will overwhelmingly benefit from the $3.7 trillion tax cut paid for by slashing Medicaid and food assistance. 

“There is nothing beautiful about this bill,” said Rachel Anderson, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association who works at Fairview Southdale. “And there is one big reason why nurses oppose it: Medicaid cuts kill people.” 

 — Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Local 96 apprentices shine at Roofers’ nationwide skills competition

June 5, 2025 by

Local 96 apprentice Jesus Lopez-Meraz celebrates a national championship with Roofers International Secretary Treasurer Mitch Terhaar (L) and President Jim Hadel. (submitted photo)

Jesus Lopez-Meraz has set a high bar for himself over the next few years.

The first-year apprentice with Roofers Local 96 won the Phase 1 division championship at the National Roofing Apprenticeship Competition last month. But he’s already set his sights on competing in the competition’s next two phases.

“I want to make it three times like the first one – first place,” Lopez-Meraz said. “I’ve got kids, so I have to show a good example.”

Apprentices from across the U.S. traveled to Minnesota for the event, hosted by Local 96 at its training center in Ham Lake from May 13 to 15. They competed in three divisions, or “phases,” for first-year apprentices, second-year apprentices and third- and fourth-year apprentices.

The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers launched the national competition last year. The international union’s three regions had long been organizing their own apprenticeship challenges, and the new event brings together their first-place winners in each phase.

Pictured are International Secretary-Treasurer Mitch Terhaar, Local 96 Apprenticeship Coordinator Andrew Richmond, Phase 3-4 runner-up Zachary Abfalter, Local 96 Business Manager Mark Conroy and International President Jim Hadel. (submitted photo)

Local 96, which represents workers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas, advanced two apprentices to the national competition. Lopez-Meraz won Phase 1, and Zachary Abfalter was the runner-up in Phase 3-4.

Event organizers ran the apprentices through several rounds of evaluation. Written exams tested their knowledge of safety rules, math blueprint-reading and more. On the shop floor, judges watched as apprentices tackled industry-specific challenges designed to test their skills.

At one station, apprentices used blow torches to install a roofing product. At another, they used hand signals to guide a crane operator delivering materials to be installed. Other challenges tested their proficiency in below-ground waterproofing, tar roofing and shingle installation.

Andrew Richmond, Local 96’s apprenticeship coordinator, said the nationwide competition is especially challenging because building materials vary from region to region. Developers in Minnesota tend to install different roofing products than in, say, southern California.

But that doesn’t mean the competition is any less intense.

“It’s a big deal not only for the apprentices who compete, but also for the locals,” Richmond said. “It’s bragging rights to see who trains the best.”

The judges revealed their results at a banquet to close the event’s final day. Officers of the international union presented winners with trophies – and cash prizes, gift cards and new tool sets.

Lopez-Meraz said it felt “phenomenal” to hear his name called. Seeing two apprentices take home trophies from the competition, he added, is a credit to Local 96’s training program and its staff.

“They give us support when you have a question or need an answer, and they have a lot of patience to train each guy and answer each question,” Lopez-Meraz said. “Many of us are Latinos, so we are short on English, but they provide support to help figure out how to help you. I feel comfortable in the union.”

Richmond said Lopez-Meraz and Abfalter have bright futures ahead in the roofing industry. The Local 96 apprentice who placed second in the Phase 3-4 division last year landed an offer to become a foreman within days of the competition.

“This is opening doors for these young workers,” Richmond said. “It’s a great opportunity.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , ,

Twin Cities doctors, nurses to picket June 3-4 as progress stalls on contract campaigns

May 29, 2025 by

Nurses at United and Children’s hospitals in St. Paul picketed during their 2022 contract campaign. (UA file)

Picket lines are coming to several Minnesota hospitals and clinics next week, as unionized doctors and nurses escalate their contract campaigns at Allina and other local health systems.

Newly organized doctors, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners at Allina Health clinics and urgent cares will hold picketing June 3 from 6 to 7 a.m. at four locations: Bloomington, Coon Rapids, Maplewood and West St. Paul.

It will mark the first time Minnesota doctors have staged informational picketing, members of the Doctors Council, a Service Employees (SEIU) affiliate, said during a virtual press conference yesterday.

“The contract Allina is offering us will unquestionably worsen primary care,” Dr. Matt Hoffman, who practices at Allina’s Vadnais Heights clinic, said.

By picketing, he added, the bargaining unit of over 600 doctors and clinicians hopes to show the public that “we are fighting to make primary care sustainable, and we want the same things as our patients.”

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association will hold informational picketing the following day, June 4, at 17 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth, where the union is bargaining contracts covering more than 15,000 members.

Nurses’ contract demands include minimum staffing levels in their units and other provisions to ensure the safety of both workers and patients. MNA President Chris Rubesch said “shoestring, COVID-era staffing levels” remain in too many Minnesota facilities.

“Nurses are doing everything they can to keep patients safe, but we are being stretched beyond our limits,” he said. “Patients are facing longer waits, and overworked staff are facing dangerous conditions. Nurses are taking action because our health care system cannot afford more delays or excuses.”

Nurses plan to picket at hospitals in the Allina, Children’s Minnesota, HealthPartners, M Health Fairview, North Memorial, Essentia and St. Luke’s systems throughout the day. Supporters are encouraged to sign up to join them on the picket line.

Unionized doctors in the Allina system held a press conference in Minneapolis last fall.

Both the doctors and nurses stressed that they are not striking, and their actions will not interrupt care.

Improving patient care is a top priority for both unions. Doctors and practitioners formed their union in 2023, Hoffman said, to gain back a voice in health care decisions that many felt they had lost at Allina, and that remains an issue “important enough for us to picket over.”

Since the two sides began bargaining a first contract in February 2024, they have reached tentative agreements on scheduling, a new mentorship program and labor-management committee, discipline language and safety protections.

But Allina has refused even to discuss union members’ proposal to ensure adequate staffing among support staff – clinical assistants, nurses, lab workers and others – in their clinics. And union members want more assurances that they will have adequate time to devote both to their patients and the ancillary tasks their profession requires, like paperwork, trainings and meetings.

Dr. Dain Meyer said Allina has introduced a troubling new metric to evaluate the urgent-care clinic where he works: patients treated per hour. “We should be aiming at highest quality and not fastest speed,” he said.

“I feel like progress has stalled (in bargaining), and I’m picketing to draw attention to this so that, in the same way we support our patients in the clinic, they might support us in winning the changes we all need,” Meyer added.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Trump guts agencies key to keeping worksites safe

May 23, 2025 by

Don Mullin (L), executive secretary of the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council, draped a black sash over the cross bearing the name of Daniel Lee, who died on the jobsite in November when a structural column fell on him. Ironworkers Local 512 President Troy Sebion held Lee’s cross during the Workers Memorial Day ceremony on the Capitol grounds. Sebion called Lee his best friend and said Lee nominated him to serve as the union’s president. “He was the best,” Sebion said. “Good worker, good father, horrible golfer. I miss him.”

Local unions’ Workers Memorial Day observances took on heightened urgency this year, as the Trump administration sought to hollow out federal agencies critical to protecting workers from injury, illness and death on the job.

Workers Memorial Day falls on April 28, the date President Richard Nixon signed the Occupa-tional Safety and Health Act into law in 1971. Unions across the U.S. hold events to honor workers who died on the job and rededicate their organizations to fighting for safer workplaces.

But 54 years since the landmark, bipartisan law took effect, Trump and his billionaire backers are moving to dramatically – and recklessly, unions say – to scale back the federal government’s investment in workplace safety.

Most alarming to worker advocates is a two-thirds reduction in staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a division of the Health and Human Services Department that is dedicated to research that protects workers.

The agency’s recommendations are relied on by workers and employers throughout the world. Its work has informed life-saving regulations around asbestos, bloodborne pathogens, silica and black lung, and it tests and authorizes safety equipment relied on by American workers across most industries.

A coalition of unions has filed a lawsuit to restore staffing at NIOSH.

Meanwhile, workers in the Department of Labor, according to a report in The Guardian, have warned of widespread resignations that could cripple the federal government’s ability to investigate and enforce wage-and-hour and OSHA regulations.

Twin Cities Building Trades unions held a Workers Memorial Day ceremony at the Capitol on April 28.

If Trump succeeds in steering the federal government away from its responsibility to protect worker safety, labor leaders warn, it will put overwhelming pressure on unions and state and local agencies to pick up the slack.

“The realities of our present day are disturbing,” Dan McConnell, president of the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council, said during a Workers Memorial Day ceremony in St. Paul. “We must remember, while political leaders come and go, our movement endures, and our job remains unchanged.”

Held at the Minnesota Workers Memorial Garden on the Capitol grounds, the ceremony wove together solemn remarks from union leaders and state regulators about their commitment to safety on the job with a sobering reminder of what’s at stake in that work.

Dean Gale, business manager of St. Paul Plumbers Local 34, offered an opening prayer from a podium placed before a row of five white crosses, each bearing the name of a union tradesperson who died in jobsite accidents or from work-related illnesses in the past year.

“Help us honor the legacy the fallen have built and left behind,” Gale said. “You can see it in the skyline.”

The names affixed to the crosses included James Baker III of Bricklayers Local 1, David Buck of Operating Engineers Local 49, Gregory E. Jeanette of IBEW Local 242, Daniel L. Lee of Ironworkers 512 and Zachary McDonald of Bricklayers Local 1.

McConnell said unions would never accept the loss of any worker to jobsite hazards “as merely the price of doing business.”

“We gather today, on Workers Memorial Day, to remember our fallen brothers, to re-center ourselves, to recognize that our work advocating for the safety of our members will never be done and to remind one another, even though we belong to different trades, the safety of our members depends on every member of every trade performing their job safely,” he said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
«Previous Page
Next Page»