Mobile billboard shines light on price of Trump’s deportation agenda

October 26, 2026 by 1 Comment

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham talks about a mobile billboard the labor federation is sending into communities across the state.

The cost of unleaded isn’t the only painfully high price confronting drivers in St. Paul – at least not today. That’s because the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s mobile billboard is crisscrossing the capital city, highlighting the local cost of President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

The public-awareness campaign, which arrives in St. Paul after tours through the Rochester and Mankato areas earlier this month, takes aim at $170 billion in funding for immigration enforcement in Trump’s signature tax and spending legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) of 2025.

The funding, which runs through September 2029, will build up two agencies, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), that were heavily involved in Operation Metro Surge here last winter.

That means Minnesota is on the hook for about $4.4 billion, or $2,050 per taxpayer, to expand the campaign that brought violence and chaos to our communities.

“That’s money people could use in their pockets,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said. “Affordability is such an issue right now. People are spending more on gas, on healthcare. They are making choices about whether to get groceries or go to the doctor.”

The Minnesota AFL-CIO’s mobile billboard spotlights a new online calculator, developed by the Economic Policy Institute, to isolate the cost of mass deportations on the local level.

The calculator also shows what those funds could have meant for public education and essential services that keep people fed, healthy and safe. The roughly $385 million paid by Ramsey County taxpayers, for example, could have been used to hire 1,300 public school teachers or to keep 11,261 people on Medicaid through the rest of Trump’s term.

Burnham said the state’s largest labor federation doesn’t want voters to forget how Trump and Republicans cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, Obamacare subsidies, and food assistance in their “Big Beautiful Bill,” while handing tax breaks to large corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

“We want to have candidates who are supporting children, working people and communities,” she said. “If we continue to lose this money (to mass deportations), people are going to keep coming up short every day.”

The mass deportation calculator adds to a growing body of research about the high cost of Trump’s immigration policies and, specifically, Operation Metro Surge.

The three-month occupation cost Minnesota an estimated 32,000 jobs, according to a report released by the Minnesota Budget Project earlier this month, and reduced economic activity, especially in the hospitality sector. Meanwhile, security costs for local communities increased by an estimated $700 million in the metro area.

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Video game workers in Bloomington ready to strike for first contract

October 23, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Members of CWA Local 2750 held a contract rally at Activision’s Bloomington quality-assurance site in August 2026.

A week before the much-anticipated “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4” was set to launch, video game workers bargaining a first union contract with the game’s Microsoft-owned publishing company announced that they had voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.

Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA, a bargaining unit of about 450 quality-assurance workers, including 300 based in Bloomington, has been in negotiations with Microsoft-owned Activision for over two years.

Union members are still waiting for management to get serious about the issues they brought to the table, CWA Local 7250 member Emily Danko said.

“Bargaining has been a long, exhausting process spanning over two years, with our committee making responsible moves while the company continues to stall on critical issues like wages, accommodations, and worker protections,” Danko, who works at the Bloomington site, said. “Despite our efforts to bargain in good faith, meaningful progress has been difficult, leaving key issues unresolved.”

The authorization vote, also approved by workers at Quality Assurance facilities in Texas and California, empowers Communications Workers of America President Claude Cummings Jr. to call a strike if negotiations continue to stall.

The strike vote comes at a critical time in the production and release cycle of one of Activision’s most popular – and profitable – franchises. “Call of Duty” is set to launch worldwide today.

“Our members remain united and continue to mobilize, but we are exploring every option available to secure the fair contract we deserve,” Danko said.

Quality Assurance workers won recognition of their union in March 2024 and entered bargaining that August seeking wage increases, guardrails on the company’s use of contractors and artificial intelligence, and protections around their right to seek accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Microsoft has failed to bargain in good faith on any of those issues, CWA District 7 Vice President Susie McAllister said.

“The results of the strike authorization vote send a clear message to Activision management: it is time to stop playing games because our members are united and prepared to do what it takes to win the strong contract they deserve,” McAllister said.

In Bloomington, Local 7250 members have begun ramping up the pressure on Activision to settle a fair deal. Nearly 50 members joined a midday rally in August, joining other Microsoft workers in a nationwide day of action. They rallied again the day before CWA announced results of the strike vote.

“We’re all kind of feeling that pinch,” union steward Andrew Snell said. “It’s taken two years. It’s taken a really long time. We’re fighting tooth and nail just to get this contract done, but we’re getting closer.”

Click here to contribute to Activision Quality Assurance workers’ strike fund.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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With workers in mind, St. Paul takes step toward regulating driverless cars

October 22, 2026 by 1 Comment

Twin Cities rideshare driver Abdikani Ali warns that autonomous vehicles would undercut workers in his industry.

At the urging of workers and labor unions, the St. Paul City Council last week put the city on course to regulate autonomous vehicles before companies like Waymo and Tesla’s Robotaxi begin operating here.

The council passed a resolution Oct. 14 directing the Planning Commission to study the issue and send back recommendations for a regulatory framework that protects workers, prioritizes safety and accountability, safeguards people’s privacy and protects public transportation systems.

“We need to understand these impacts for ourselves – not take big tech’s word for it,” Council President Rebecca Noecker, who led efforts to pass the resolution, said at a press conference inside City Hall before the vote.

Already, Waymo vehicles are surveying Minneapolis and St. Paul streets, although human monitors still ride inside. The Google-owned taxi company currently operates in 15 U.S. cities. Tesla robotaxis have gone live in six urban areas.

Uber and Lyft drivers, who recently began organizing a union with Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26, have lobbied city leaders in both Minneapolis and St. Paul to act now, before autonomous vehicles begin commercial operations here, to prevent widespread job losses.

Minnesota’s rideshare industry generates over $500 million in total economic output, generating about $43 million in local and state tax revenues.

If local governments like St. Paul fail to act, Council Member Hwa Jeong Kim said, “hundreds of millions of dollars that today support working families across St. Paul would instead flow to Silicon Valley CEOs.”

Rideshare drivers like Abdikani Ali agreed. Ali supports his family by driving for Uber and Lyft, working as many as 16 hours in a day to make ends meet.

“I don’t want Waymo or Tesla to come into the St. Paul community and take away the jobs that people like me depend on,” Ali said. “I also don’t want the money and wages that we’re (earning) to leave our community and go to companies and corporations run by Elon Musk and Google.”

Council members in Minneapolis last month attempted to protect rideshare drivers’ jobs with an ordinance requiring autonomous vehicles to carry human monitors, but it failed to pass.

The resolution adopted in St. Paul, Noecker said, does not presuppose any policy outcome. Instead, the council is setting in motion a process that will seek answers from the community about what guardrails are appropriate. “The outcome of that could look a lot of different ways,” Noecker said.

The Planning Commission’s work is expected to take six months to a year.

“Our responsibility is to the people of St. Paul, not to these corporations,” Noecker added. “Depending on what our community tells us, there may be guardrails we can put in place that allow these vehicles to operate safely, but we need to do the work first. And we want to do that work now rather than wait until they are literally at our door.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Resident physicians call on U of M to get serious in first-contract talks

September 25, 2026 by

Dr. Schuyler Gaillard, a resident in the U of M Medical Center’s internal medicine and dermatology programs, describes first-contract talks as “antagonistic.”

Residents at the University of Minnesota Medical Center are fed up with their employer’s “antagonistic” approach to bargaining a first union contract, and asking for public support in pressuring the U of M to settle a fair deal.

Resident physicians and fellows formed their union with the Committee of Interns and Residents, a Service Employees (SEIU) affiliate, in March 2025. The bargaining unit brings together nearly 1,000 medical-school graduates who treat patients under the supervision of a senior physician while training in specialized care.

Contract negotiations with the university began over a year ago, and union members’ demands include fair wages, better health and dental benefits, and a matching contribution to their retirement savings, as well as language that codifies protections for immigrant and LGBTQ staff members.

But during a press conference last month outside the U’s East Bank hospital, union members said the employer has failed to match their sense of urgency at the bargaining table – slow-walking the process “to the point where they have been union-busting,” CIR bargaining team member Schuyler Gaillard said.

The third-year resident, training in internal medicine and dermatology, offered several examples of bad-faith bargaining by the university, including an attempt to schedule sessions in the middle of the workday without allowing members of the bargaining team paid time off to attend.

The U also has flatly refused to discuss some union proposals, while its own have often been insulting. Supriya Reddy, a resident in the pediatrics program, recalled being among 100 CIR members who showed up to a session where university administrators made their initial wage offer.

“They sat in front of over 100 of us and offered a 1% raise, less than the cost of inflation,” Reddy said. “Moreover, they proposed broad fiscal emergency language that would allow them to get rid of the raises entirely under any circumstances they choose.”

As the university drags its feet at the bargaining table, Reddy said, she and other resident physicians continue to struggle with widespread burnout, understaffing, workweeks that sometimes exceed 80 hours and the rising cost of living – not to mention the burden of a debt load that averages $250,000 for medical school graduates.

“We are proud of the care that we provide to our patients, but it is increasingly harder to be the best version of ourselves,” Reddy said.

A first contract that improves residents’ working conditions, Gaillard added, will improve patient care, too.

“We took an oath to protect our patients, and that starts at the bargaining table,” she said. “We won’t settle for anything less than what we need to continue to provide quality care for our patients.”

Resident physicians and fellows at the U of M Medical Center are asking members of the public to sign onto their petition for a fair first contract at act.seiu.org/a/umn-cir-community-petition.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Bargaining moves slowly for Macalester’s newly organized unions

September 25, 2026 by

Macalaster student workers held a union rally on campus in May 2025.

First, it was the undergraduates at Macalester who unionized with the United Auto Workers (UAW). Then the non-faculty staff followed suit, unionizing with the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE).

So why is Macalester dragging their feet on hammering out the needed contracts?

Undergraduate cafeteria workers get fed up

“It started with a group of cafeteria workers,” student Luca Schira explained. “That was the place with the most issues for student employees. It was unsafe, and students weren’t trained on most things. And then the demand (for unionization) quickly spread to all the student workers.”

After connecting with students from as far as Oregon and as close as the U of M graduate students, the Macalester students decided to unionize with the United Auto Workers (UAW). They formed Macalester Undergraduate Workers Union (MUWU), the first union of undergraduate workers in Minnesota.

“UAW had the reputation for being a progressive, fighting union, and they had a high-profile strike at the time,” student Xavier Honer said. “Also, we looked at Grinnell as a model: A small liberal arts college that also started as cafeteria workers and branched out.”

The hard part

The successful vote to unionize the student workers took place Feb. 25 and 26. After the initial relief and celebration came the hard part: Negotiating a contract.

Said Honer: “It started slowly, and the ICE invasion forced us to cancel one or two of our meetings. The bargaining sessions were scheduled for every other week. Beyond scheduling, there is a lot of resistance. We joke that their favorite phrase is ‘the employer is not interested in hearing this proposal,’ and they would only put into writing that they would follow the current law, basically doing the bare minimum already required of them.”

In the meantime, MAPE at Mac was born, representing non-faculty, non-supervisory staff. They also began negotiating with the college administration over benefit and wage disputes.

How a storied liberal arts college responds

The ball was in Macalester’s court. This is Macalester, the storied liberal arts college, whose mission reads: “Macalester is committed to being a preeminent liberal arts college with an educational program known for its high standards for scholarship and its special emphasis on internationalism, multiculturalism, and service to society.”

Macalester’s response? They hired Felhaber Larson, which has a reputation for advising corporate clients on how to fight unionization. They have provided counsel with companies like Starbucks, for example, and are often viewed as legal defenders of anti-union policies.

Next steps

Now that summer is over, there is a break in the action as school gets rolling into the fall semester. The negotiations are expected to begin again in earnest. What will happen next?

“We need people in the community aware of what’s going on and how slow Macalester is making the bargaining process,” Honer said. “Joining our mailing list to keep up with our events and bargaining updates is the best place to start.

“We always appreciate anybody showing up to our events whether they’re students, alumni, or just community members wanting to support us.”

Show your solidarity

Find links to support student workers and their union at region4.uaw.org/local5105.

– Joel Haskard, Special to The Union Advocate

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Dreaming big on Labor Day: What if union membership tripled nationwide?

September 2, 2026 by

Baristas at Starbucks have organized at over 700 locations nationwide, including in St. Anthony.

About 15 million American workers are union members, but polling shows that some 50 million more would join a union today if they could.

What if that happened?

That’s the question researchers at the Economic Policy Institute sought to answer in a first-of-its-kind report, “The Case for Tripling Union Membership,” published in July.

Tripling union membership, from roughly 10% of the workforce to 30%, would restore union density to levels not seen since the 1950s, when union power delivered rising wages for working people, helped narrow racial wage gaps and built a thriving middle class.

In their new report, EPI researchers argue that similar benefits are possible today: higher wages across the board, lower inequality, stronger communities and a healthier democracy. The report also shares a policy roadmap to boost union membership and expand the benefits of collective bargaining.

“Tripling union membership is not a nostalgic pipe dream,” EPI President Heidi Shierholz said. “It is exactly what workers want, and federal and state policymakers have a clear roadmap to make it happen.

“Collective bargaining is the most effective tool for workers to raise their wages and secure a fair share of economic growth. If policymakers are serious about tackling affordability problems, expanding union membership and collective bargaining should be at the center of their agenda.”

The report estimates that tripling union membership would:

  • Deliver a 14.5% raise for the median worker, amounting to more than $7,700 annually – or nearly $270,000 over a 35-year career. Increases would apply union and nonunion workers alike.
  • Shift $1.2 trillion to workers annually. This would reverse one-third of the increase in inequality experienced since 1979.
  • Raise worker earnings in every state, including by an estimated $6,500 annually in Minnesota and $9,200 in Wisconsin.
  • Significantly narrow racial wage gaps. Because unions tend to boost wages more for Black and Hispanic workers than for white workers, tripling union membership would close racial wage gaps by more than one-third.
  • Increase the number of people covered by health insurance. Greater collective bargaining power would reduce the number of nonelderly people going without health insurance by about 25%.
  • Strengthen communities. States with high union density invest more in public education, have higher unemployment insurance recipiency rates and have all adopted Medicaid expansion.
  • Protect democracy. Unions boost voter turnout, equip workers with civic skills and actively defend voting rights. States with high union density have passed far fewer voter restriction bills than low-density states.

Of course, tripling union membership won’t actually happen overnight. Organizing is deliberate work that requires the investment of energy and resources – a commitment the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, made at its constitutional convention in June, pledging to organize 2 million new members over the next five years.

Unions have also pushed policymakers to modernize federal labor law and even the playing field in workplace organizing drives.

The report unveils two new policy proposals designed to grow collective bargaining and union density – proposals that, authors say, are “built to work alongside” organized labor’s top policy priorities, the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act.

One proposal would guarantee annual raises for newly unionized workers. A mandatory cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) would provide a meaningful guardrail for workers whose first contract bargaining ends up in arbitration – and undercut the employer’s ability to drag out the process.

The other ambitious proposal: require collective bargaining as the default option when CEO-to-worker pay ratios exceed 100-to-1. “Declining unionization and the stratospheric rise in CEO pay are deeply connected,” EPI’s researchers said. “Strengthening the bargaining power of workers in severely imbalanced companies would enable them to capture a larger share of the wealth their work creates.”

The report also calls on states to repeal so-called “right-to-work” laws and ensure collective bargaining rights for all public-sector workers, which alone would increase union density nationally from 9.9% to 14.4%.

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‘Shared passion for community’ drives union campaign at Twin Cities climbing gyms

August 28, 2026 by

Bouldering Project workers formed a union with Workers United, an SEIU affiliate.

After a meeting with the CEO left more questions than answers, workers at two Bouldering Project gyms in the Twin Cities moved quickly to organize a union.

Workers voted to 79-7 to form a bargaining unit with Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees (SEIU), in a landslide election Aug. 6 overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.

The new unit brings together 117 workers at the St. Paul and Minneapolis climbing gyms, from climbing supervisors and youth programming staff to front-desk and maintenance workers.

The climbing industry has expanded steadily over the past decade, and with projections to continue growing, the industry is attracting outside investment, including from private equity.

Climbing workers, in turn, have been forming unions to protect their voice as the industry changes. Vertical Endeavors workers in the Twin Cities unionized in 2023 with the United Food and Commercial Workers. Bouldering Project gyms in Brooklyn and Boston saw successful union drives over the last year, and Workers United represents staff at over 30 climbing gyms nationwide.

The organizing bug reached Bouldering Project’s Twin Cities gym via an unlikely source: a gym member who traveled to Brooklyn and, by coincidence, met Bouldering Project workers there who had recently unionized. The member connected the Brooklyn worker with a Minneapolis worker after returning home.

From there, the campaign took shape, tapping into a growing sense that the culture at Bouldering Project was changing, according to Arrow Shipp, a supervisor in the St. Paul gym entering their fourth year on the Bouldering Project staff. Shipp said some workers trace the shift to a round of private-equity investment after the COVID pandemic.

“Part of the reason people want to be at the Minneapolis Bouldering Project is the community they’ve built – the vibes, the inclusivity, being local at the core,” Shipp said. “I think a lot of people were feeling like we’re pushing promos for new members more than we are building community with current members. We’re losing those core values that the company claims, and I think people were getting tired of the energy.”

Soon after organizing began, Bouldering Project CEO Trever Ackerman announced plans to hold town-hall meetings with workers across the U.S. When Ackerman came to the Twin Cities, workers – some involved in the not-yet-public union drive and some not – were ready with direct questions, expecting a give-and-take dialogue, Shipp said.

That wasn’t what they got.

“It felt very performative,” Shipp said. “We asked Trever questions directly, and he kind of danced around the answers.”

Ackerman asked for more time to process workers’ concerns and pledged to respond. That response came June 1 with a letter announcing wage rates would increase by 1% to 5% for nine Twin Cities positions, including six non-management roles.

But Front-desk workers like Shipp were excluded from the raises. Some workers Shipp talked to reported seeing raises of 13 to 25 cents per hour.

“Those raises felt kind of like a slap in the face,” Shipp said. “They weren’t hearing us; they were trying to appease us.”

Now that they’ve unionized, Twin Cities workers will look to address their issues with a seat at the bargaining table.

Priorities for a first contract, according to the union, will likely include job security and pay. The wages of some full-time workers are low enough that they could qualify for public assistance.

Shipp, 27, said the organizing process has deepened connections between co-workers, many of whom have never been members of a union before.

“We learned that we have a shared passion for community and the fight for workers’ rights,” Shipp said. “Spending time talking about that and getting together to work toward this common goal was really incredible.

“Sometimes society feels like it’s in a really tough spot right now. It’s so cool to have people come together and support each other.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Bloomington video game workers ‘fighting tooth and nail’ with Microsoft for first contract

August 27, 2026 by

Activision workers march from their office in Bloomington to demonstrate along Old Shakopee Road during the “Save Our Devs” national day of action.

BLOOMINGTON – Video game workers rallied Aug. 18 for a fair first contract with their Microsoft-owned publishing firm, while also standing in solidarity with workers across the country fighting layoffs and corporate greed in Microsoft’s gaming studios.

Members of Activision Quality Assurance United, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), held “Save Our Devs” rallies at Activision worksites in Minnesota, Texas and California.

Union members called for a nationwide day of action after Microsoft announced in July that it would shutter some gaming studios and lay off over 3,200 workers in its XBOX division, which includes Activision. The first round of layoffs, scheduled this month, will impact 1,600 XBOX workers, including hundreds of union members.

So far, the layoffs have spared Activision Quality Assurance United members, but union steward Andrew Snell said the union wanted to join workers and gamers across the country voicing their anger over the unilateral path Microsoft has laid out for XBOX.

“It’s good for us to have a good relationship with our developers in order to have a quality game that goes out,” Snell said, adding that labor law requires the company to engage workers’ union in bargaining over discretionary layoffs.

Quality assurance workers also want to keep the pressure on Microsoft to settle a first contract with their bargaining unit, which brings together about 450 workers across the three facilities, including roughly 300 members of CWA Local 7250 in Bloomington.

The unit won recognition of their union in March 2024 and opened negotiations with Microsoft five months later. The “Save Our Devs” rally came as those talks were poised to enter a third year.

Snell, a quality assurance specialist with six years of experience at Activision, said progress toward a contract has been steady, with the two sides meeting three days per month.

Outstanding issues include wages and job security. Union members also want to secure workplace accommodations for those who need them, pointing to a lack of transparency and consistency in Activision’s office policies.

“I’ll go to my manager with a question about a particular policy, and they’ll come back with something,” Snell said. “Then I’ll go ask two or three other managers for someone else, and they’ll all have different answers. So it kind of depends on which manager you ask until you go and ask somebody higher up. It would be helpful if people were all on the same page.”

A union contract would accomplish just that, and nearly 50 union members joined the rally in Bloomington to let Microsoft know they are running out of patience with the bargaining process.

“We’re all kind of feeling that pinch,” Snell said. “It’s taken two years. It’s taken a really long time. We’re fighting tooth and nail just to get this contract done, but we’re getting closer.”

Learn more about forming a union in the video game industry at uvw-cwa.org.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Strike ends as Hazelden nurses ratify historic contract with safety guarantees

July 30, 2026 by

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association vote on the proposed contract with Hazelden.

Nurses ended their strike at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s Center City campus this week, settling a first contract that, union members say, will address concerns that sparked their historic organizing campaign.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association’s bargaining unit – about 60 nurses in all – voted to ratify the contract today. Union negotiators reached a tentative agreement with Hazelden on Tuesday.

That brought a halt to picketing outside the prestigious addiction-treatment facility that began July 15 and persisted through steamy temperatures, smoky air and gridlock at the bargaining table.

That resolve sent a strong message to management, members of the bargaining team said.

“It was taxing physically, financially, mentally and sometimes spiritually, but the best thing about it was we were really able to bond on that line,” Anne Coleman, a registered nurse at Hazelden for the last two years, said. “And not only did we bond, but we were able to have our voices heard, which we know has not been the case consistently for years and years – especially around security and safety.

“This was historic, and I’m really proud of our team.”

Indeed, nurses at the Chisago County campus became the first anywhere across Hazelden Betty Ford’s system to win a union contract, and one of their key gains – providing staff with panic buttons – will extend to nurses and other caregivers nationwide, veteran registered nurse Jody Burton said.

“It’s going to be in California, Chicago, Florida – it’s a huge win,” Burton said. “From Day 1, they were like, ‘No, this (safety language) is never going to be part of your contract.’ But we won it, and we won it for everyone. We’re a powerful team.”

The contract establishes a firm deadline for management to implement panic buttons and other workplace safety measures. Nurses also pushed Hazelden to staff their rural facility with security or safety personnel, and the employer committed to “a contractual pathway to implement safety staff,” according to MNA.

Safety emerged as a top issue in negotiations for union members, who pointed to the increased abuse of highly potent drugs, like fentanyl, among their patients. MNA pulled public data that found county sheriff’s deputies responded to nearly three calls each week, on average, to the Center City campus between Jan. 1, 2025, and July 19, 2026.

Coleman called the contract “a move in the right direction that I don’t think would have happened if we had not gone on strike,” and she pledged that the union would “keep promoting and advocating for safety protocols to help us do our jobs.”

“And it’s not just about the nurses,” she added. “I think about the techs who have been in verbal and physical altercations. I think about the other nurses who have been kicked, punched, spit on. I think about the other patients who are terrified by a psychosis event. In a highly emotional, stressful environment, there should be better safeguards, and this contract is leading that way.”

The contract also delivers economic gains and puts nurses’ health-insurance benefits in writing, protecting against the kind of sudden, arbitrary cuts that many Hazelden employees experienced two years ago – and provided the spark for nurses to form a union with MNA.

Additionally, nurses gained recognition of their full bargaining unit, including casual and on-call nurses. Hazelden fought to divide the unit during their organizing drive, forcing two separate union elections, both of which were successful.

Now, Burton said, nurses are eager to get back to work and back to their patients. The financial strain of going on strike was significant for many union members, she added.

“But you could never tell by the way people showed up on the line with their family, shouting and screaming and digging in their feet,” Burton said. “We would have fought longer if we’d have had to.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Hazelden nurses ‘not backing down’ as strike enters second week

July 23, 2026 by

Nurses speak with press after bargaining with Hazelden in St. Paul Tuesday.

Nurses bargaining a first union contract with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation launched an open-ended strike July 15 at the renowned addiction-treatment facility in Center City, and their picket line remains up after two bargaining sessions this week.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) voted to authorize a strike nearly a year into negotiations. Nurses have filed multiple unfair-labor-practice complaints during that time, accusing Hazelden of making unilateral changes to working conditions without bargaining and attempting to prevent workers from protected union activity.

But nurses also say that, at the bargaining table, Hazelden has refused to address the issues behind their vote to unionize in January 2025, including workplace safety, competitive wages and benefits, and improved working conditions that they need to care for patients with increasingly complex needs.

“We keep coming with a new solution that they’re immediately shutting down,” Jody Burton, a registered nurse with nearly 11 years of experience at Hazelden, said. “We come with a different solution; they shut it down. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now, and they don’t ever bring a solution to the table.”

Burton and other members of MNA’s bargaining team have been traveling to negotiations in St. Paul – nearly an hour’s drive from their workplace in Center City – at Hazelden’s request.

Back in Chisago County, members of the 60-person bargaining unit are keeping an active picket line up at the intersection of U.S. Highway 8 and Pleasant Valley Road, near the entrance to Hazelden’s main campus. (Support is welcome on the picket line; follow MNA’s social media for updates.)

“We literally have had people on the lines in the hottest days, in bad quality air,” Burton said. “We haven’t budged. We are still strong, still energized, and we will still be there every day that (management) are not willing to negotiate because we are fighting for a reason – for our patients to have a safe place to change.”

Hazelden nurses picket in Center City.

But safety has been a sticking point in contract negotiations between MNA and Hazelden.

At a time when healthcare workers nationwide are expressing concerns about workplace safety, Hazelden nurses are increasingly treating patients under the influence of highly potent drugs like fentanyl. Nurses say the de-escalation tactics that they are trained to use when a patient becomes violent are insufficient alone.

In bargaining, nurses have floated proposals like round-the-clock security, panic buttons and minimum staffing levels to protect patients, caregivers and visitors. Hazelden has responded that a greater security presence is incompatible with its care environment, according to union members.

“Some of us who have been at Hazelden for decades, we’ve seen a shift in the patients that we take in, and with that shift comes a lot of violence,” Burton said. “We may not have needed those (protections) five, seven or 10 years ago, but we need them now.”

But on Day 1 of the strike, nurses were quick to notice that security personnel crossed their picket line to support replacement nurses – “the same security protections nurses have been bargaining for over the past year but still have not received,” bargaining team member Ann Coleman said.

“Temporary nursing staff have security, and we don’t. Let that sink in,” Coleman added. “Safety isn’t a luxury, and it’s not optional – and it shouldn’t be something nurses have to fight for.”

MNA and Hazelden are scheduled to resume bargaining tomorrow, and they have another session scheduled July 28. Coleman said the strike won’t end until management comes ready to “bargain with purpose.”

“We’re not backing down,” she added.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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