Union members say Ellison has stuck up for workers as Attorney General

October 28, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Attorney General Keith Ellison speaks before a door-knock with SEIU President April Verrett in Minneapolis.

Locked in a tight re-election campaign, Attorney General Keith Ellison deserves working Minnesotans’ vote because he puts the power of his office to work for them, union members and labor leaders say.

And they have the receipts to prove it.

Hospitality workers at Target Field, members of UNITE HERE Local 17, have long raised questions about nonprofits that the stadium brings in to operate concession stands, purportedly raising funds for their charitable organizations.

When union members entered contract negotiations with Target Field’s concessionaire, Delaware North, earlier this year, they proposed limits on the practice. The employer showed no interest, Local 17 President Sheigh Freeberg said.

But in July, Ellison announced that his office had reached a civil settlement to shut down one of the nonprofits operating Target Field concession stands, MN Fundraising Initiative (MNFI), after investigating allegations that it was not operated for any charitable purpose. Instead, MNFI was operating as a staffing agency to misclassify hundreds of employees as “volunteers” and deploying them to work in concession stands at venues across the Twin Cities.

Freeberg called it a validating moment for Local 17 members.

“This is a thing that workers have been talking about for years,” Freeberg said. “It’s not right that these sham charities undercut union wages, undercut union labor and take away hours from union workers. It’s hard to overstate how important this settlement was.”

It’s just one of several cases Ellison’s office has built against bad bosses in recent years, seeking justice for victims of wage theft, misclassification or predatory employment practices.

The Attorney General’s Office secured $250,000 in back pay for dairy workers, won $800,000 in restitution for delivery drivers with the gig-economy firm Shipt and, earlier this year, won an important decision that keeps alive efforts to recoup wages allegedly stolen from cleaning workers at Madison Equities’ former holdings in downtown St. Paul.

Fighting back against Trump

Union leaders also point to Ellison’s work since January 2025 to defend Minnesota against attacks from the Trump administration, filing or signing onto over 50 cases against the executive branch.

Ellison’s office filed one of those cases in July, after Trump’s Department of Education abruptly announced it would withhold funding appropriated to local school districts across the country. Minnesota districts stood to lose a combined $74 billion.

“Two months before fall classes, before school was supposed to start, school leaders all over the state scrambled to see what they would have to cut if no one stepped in for students and no one stepped up for the Constitution,” Brian McCarthy, president of the West St. Paul Federation of Teachers, said. “Fortunately, someone did.”

Trump relented, and the federal government released the funding. But McCarthy wondered whether Ellison’s opponent, corporate attorney Ron Schutz, would have sued his own party’s president.

“Lawsuits like that tell me that Keith will continue to work for our kids and our communities,” McCarthy said.

Keeping an eye out for workers

For healthcare workers and advocates, meanwhile, Ellison’s leadership in the Attorney General’s Office is critical to navigating an unprecedented period of upheaval in the sector, with three pairs of health systems seeking the office’s approval for sales or mergers in the last year.

Unions say Ellison understands the importance of maintaining their collective bargaining rights as part of that process.

North Memorial and Sanford made that guarantee as part of a binding community benefits agreement that paved the way for approval of their merger earlier this year, but advocates are still pushing Allina and California-based Sutter Health, as well as HealthPartners and Essentia, for similar agreements.

Allina hospice nurse Susie Smerz said she’s grateful for the work Ellison did to get their newly organized bargaining unit a first contract – without having to go on an open-ended strike. Representatives of the Attorney General’s Office, she said, were directly involved with last-ditch talks to avoid a strike, doing “shuttle diplomacy” to get a tentative agreement between Allina Health and her bargaining unit with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.

“The hospice nurses began feeling like an open-ended strike had become the only tool in our tool belt,” Smerz said. “I don’t know how, but the Attorney General’s Office got wind of it and, I think, was like, ‘Oh no, Allina.’ They really got us to the finish line.

“It really seemed like they cared about us – about the little people. We’re a unit of 55 to 60 nurses, and that’s a drop in the bucket for Allina. They were willing to wear us down. But the Attorney General’s Office wanted to be sure we didn’t get left in the dust.”

UNITE HERE’s Freeberg said he tells people Minnesota has the best Attorney General for workers in the country. But that comes with a target on Ellison’s race each time he’s on the ballot.

“He didn’t have to take on cases like ours,” Freeberg said. “These sham charities exist in all 50 states. But that’s who Keith is. He’s someone that workers can always count on, and his opponent is someone that their bosses can always count on. I really don’t think the stakes could be higher than that.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Labor-endorsed ballot question would deliver funding for schools without raising taxes

October 27, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Minnesota voters have an opportunity in the Nov. 3 election to send more funding to the state’s public schools – without raising taxes – by voting “yes” on a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution.

With high-profile races for governor and U.S. Senate dominating the media cycles and control of the statehouse up for grabs, the ballot question is, perhaps, flying under the radar this fall.

But its potential impact is significant, with benefits extending to every public school district in the state.

Education Minnesota, representing about 80,000 educators and school employees statewide, has endorsed a “yes” vote, as has the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

The amendment, if passed, would increase distributions from the state’s Permanent School Fund, a trust created in 1858 that pays public schools each year using revenue from timber sales, mineral leases and investment returns on public land.

Since 2010, the fund has grown from about $675 million to more than $2.3 billion, but a law passed in the 1800s still governs how the fund’s investment gains are distributed.

Last year, districts received a combined $58 million from the fund, or about 2.5% of its value. The proposed amendment would increase distributions to 4.5% of the fund’s three-year rolling average value, a rate agreed upon by a non-partisan task force of investment, trust, legal and education experts appointed by the Legislature in 2024.

The proposed rate is more in line with practices used by university endowments and charitable foundations across the country, supporters say.

The immediate impact depends on investment returns, of course, but had the amendment passed last year, school districts would have seen an increase of about $33 per pupil from the fund.

For example, in the White Bear Lake School District, it would have meant nearly $275,000 in added revenue. For Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan, it would have drawn nearly $1 million in added funds.

The change won’t impact the state’s general fund or require any new taxes.

Votes in the Legislature to put the amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot drew bipartisan support, including a 134-0 vote in the House. Sen. Mary Kunesh, a DFLer and chief author of the amendment, called it “a responsible path forward.”

“As a former public school educator and chair of the Senate Education Finance Committee, I know how vital it is to secure additional funds and support for our public schools, and this is one way to provide that support without asking taxpayers to pay one penny more,” Kunesh added.

DFL and Republican leaders have voiced support for the ballot question, but advocates remain concerned on two fronts.

First, voters need to locate the proposed amendment on their ballot – it could be on the back side – and cast a vote. Minnesota constitutional amendments require a majority of all voters to mark the “yes” box, which means leaving the question blank counts as a “no” vote.

And educators, in particular, are concerned that the presence of the amendment question, which makes clear that the outcome will not raise taxes, could hurt the chances of local school funding questions that might also appear on the ballot, like a levy or bonding request.

While increased funding from the Permanent School Fund will help schools, Education Minnesota Vice President Marty Fridgen said, it won’t solve all their financial struggles. Many districts will still need to pass levies this fall to avoid cuts.

“For some people, they’re going to be going into the booth and also have an operating levy for their district,” Fridgen said. “Thirty dollars extra from this fund is not enough for some of our school districts to alleviate the other needs they have. So we’re nervous that people will vote yes on the amendment because it’s not going to raise their taxes, but on the other question they’re going to say no.”

Public school districts received, on average, $13,333 per pupil in state funding in the 2025 fiscal year, but a report issued by the nonpartisan North Star Policy Action in August found that, when adjusted for inflation, state funding continues to lag 2003 levels.

A historic investment during the 2023 legislative session cut the per-pupil aid gap by 56%, according to researchers. But 2025 funding remained 8.6% lower than the inflation-adjusted amount from 2003, a difference of about $1,249.

Learn more about the constitutional amendment at voteyesmnstudents.org.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

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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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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TSA officers’ commemoration comes with warning against privatization

September 25, 2026 by

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum joins AFGE Local 899’s commemoration of the 9/11 attack.As Transportation Security Adminis-tration agents at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport commemorated the 25th anniversary of 9/11 last month, union leaders made a point of warning against new attempts by the Trump administration to privatize U.S. airport security.

American Federation of Government Employees Local 899 held its observance on the mezzanine level of Terminal 1, perched above the ticketing counters. Two members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation, Reps. Betty McCollum and Kelly Morrison, joined the event, as did a representative of the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

Speakers mourned the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, and they reflected on the role TSA workers have played in protecting the nation’s airways from other attacks since then.

Local 899 Secretary Emily Woods was a child when the attacks took place, but she now works as a transportation security officer at MSP, serving in the agency created by Congress after 9/11 to standardize passenger screenings in the nation’s commercial airports.

“I may have been too young to understand Sept. 11 as it happened, but I understand its significance today,” Woods said. “Every time I put on my TSA uniform, I carry forward the responsibility that came from that day.”

“Every day, transportation security officers carry out that important mission,” Local 899 President Sharif Mehanna said. “They identify prohibited items, they respond to evolving threats and they protect millions of passengers – often under difficult conditions and without receiving the recognition they deserve.”

Difficult conditions have been all too common for TSA workers during the second Trump administration. They were forced to work without pay during extended Department of Homeland Security shutdowns, and Trump’s DHS appointees have sought to strip TSA officers of their union contract – a move AFGE has challenged in federal court.

Now, the administration is acting on a secretly devised plan, TSA Gold+, to privatize passenger screening at some airports. The agency recently informed AFGE of its intention to launch the program, which puts private contractors in charge of passenger screening and the screening technology itself, at three airports next year: Tampa, Fla.; Charleston, S.C.; and Des Moines, Iowa.

At MSP Airport, union leaders and federal lawmakers called the privatization scheme a dangerous departure from the system that has worked to protect travelers in the 25 years since 9/11.

Morrison said she opposes any effort to “change airport security that does not include input from the real experts, TSA employees.” McCollum agreed.

“I fly in and out of a lot of airports, and every airport is different,” McCollum said. “But the one thing I know is consistent is the professionalism and the training (of TSA officers). If this starts being privatized, it’s going to be scattered all over. You can come in with the lowest contract? That’s not who I want watching out for my constituents when they fly.”

Local 899 Treasurer Neal Gosman said privatization threatens to undermine TSA officers’ healthcare and pension benefits and their wage standards. But it would also come at a price to accountability, which officers take seriously.

“It takes years to get someone trained up fully; to replace us all with a privatized workforce would be a tremendous loss to federal security,” Gosman said. “The message that we learned after 9/11 is that we aren’t just here to do airport security, we’re here to do national security. That is the oath that we take as federal employees, and we do that work every day.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Feds spied on local unions during Operation Metro Surge

August 27, 2026 by

Communications Workers (CWA) Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson speaks during a demonstration outside Target’s corporate offices in Minneapolis. Federal agents issued administrative summons to obtain information on the union’s recent political spending.

Minnesota’s largest labor federation accused the Trump administration of “bringing back McCarthyism” after court filings exposed wide-reaching federal surveillance of local unions during the deadly and chaotic immigration dragnet last winter.

While purportedly investigating a criminal conspiracy to impede Operation Metro Surge, Department of Homeland Security agents infiltrated a meeting at the United Labor Center in Minneapolis, demanded one local union’s transaction log from U.S. Bank and dug into the political spending of another.

DHS investigators dubbed the spying campaign “Operation Puppet Master.”

Undercover agents, posing as protesters, also surveilled meetings at churches, parks, libraries and schools, “at times working to entice people into discussing or committing crimes,” according to court documents filed Aug. 13 by an attorney for one of 15 Minnesota protesters facing federal charges stemming from Metro Surge protests.

The filings also unearthed a diagram produced by DHS to show 18 organizations allegedly leading “The Conspiracy.” They include the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the Service Employees, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE).

Attorney Kevin Riach, who filed the motion, said DHS investigators “conjured up a vast and irrational conspiracy” without any criminal predicate.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham and other labor leaders called it an attempt to criminalize dissent.

“The Minnesota AFL-CIO and several of our affiliated unions are being targeted simply because our state’s labor movement stood in solidarity with our immigrant union members and neighbors when our state was under siege this past winter,” Burnham said.

“Minnesotans and most people across our country have rejected this administration’s attempts to demonize immigrants. They are now bringing back McCarthyism to paint unions and organizations that advocate for workers and families as threats to the nation.”

MAPE member Alec Stewart, one of 15 ICE protesters facing charges, says DHS surveilled unions “because our community connections and solidarity were so effective.”

The motion for discovery exposing the surveillance measures used here last winter seeks to compel DHS to provide a fuller picture of how its agents spied on Minnesota unions, nonprofits and activists.

Riach filed the motion earlier this month on behalf of Isaac Sant, one of 15 Minnesotans, including some union members, charged in June with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer as part of a coordinated Justice Department operation. Sant also faces interstate stalking charges for allegedly following an ICE vehicle to Hudson, Wis.

Unions and civil rights groups roundly condemned the charges.

In a public statement, 50 organizations accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department to punish a few activists for a historic campaign of popular resistance to Metro Surge.

The statement, signed by the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Education Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association and 13 other union groups, decries that the charges come from “the very same (agency) that refuses to investigate or press charges in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.”

The 15 protesters charged were among thousands of Minnesotans who rose up to defend their neighbors – tracking ICE agents, alerting communities to their presence, documenting their actions and demonstrating in the streets.

Organized labor lent critical support to those efforts – and federal agents clearly took notice, MAPE member Alec Stewart, one of the activists facing charges, said.

Stewart, a forestry worker for the State of Minnesota, joined a press conference last month outside Target headquarters in downtown Minneapolis, where labor, faith and immigrant organizations called on Minnesota’s large companies to publicly reject political surveillance and retaliation.

“The revelation of Operation Puppet Master exposes that while the government was targeting immigrant communities, tearing families apart, abducting children and murdering folks in the street, they were also attempting to disrupt and dismantle one of the facets of Minnesota that makes us so unique,” Stewart said. “That is our strong and unified labor movement.

“They were doing this simply because our connections and our community solidarity were so effective.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Union members sound alarm on threats to Postal Service, mail-in voting

July 28, 2026 by

APWU members march outside the Eagan Post Office during a nationwide day of action.

EAGAN – Twin Cities postal workers rallied today to raise awareness about threats to Minnesotans’ mail service coming out of Washington, D.C.

Joining a nationwide “Protect Our Public Post Office Day of Action,” local members of the American Postal Workers Union demonstrated outside the U.S. Postal Service distribution center in Eagan, along busy Lexington Avenue.

Union members warned of multiple threats to mail service, including President Donald Trump’s latest nominees to the USPS Board of Governors and the president’s increasingly aggressive attempts to curb mail-in voting.

“This is a critical time for the USPS, and we need leaders at the top who understand this important institution and are committed to public service,” Dave Cook, president of the APWU’s St. Paul local, said.

The Senate is likely to vote soon on four nominees to the Board of Governors who, union members say, are unqualified to oversee the agency, particularly at a time when it is under financial pressure and attempting to modernize.

Not only do the nominees lack experience with the post office or the logistics and delivery industry, but all four are Republicans, prompting concerns from Senate Democrats that Trump may be looking to consolidate his power over a historically bipartisan board.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) aired those concerns in a letter to GOP leadership earlier this month, warning that an “imbalance in representation would be unprecedented and would undermine public confidence in the Board’s ability to serve the public interest above any partisan political aims.”

At the rally, APWU members urged Minnesota’s senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, to vote against Trump’s nominees. Cook said he worries that the administration’s ultimate aim is greater privatization of the Postal Service.

“The deck is being stacked against us politically,” Cook said. “If we keep getting leaders who want to privatize it, then that’s the way it’s going to go. They will take the services that we provide, jack up the prices and make big profits.”

Supporters of privatization point to the Postal Service’s financial woes, and the agency – which operates without taxpayer support – recently leveraged its retiree-benefit funds to cover operating costs.

Workers say a better approach would be to allow the USPS to diversify its pension investments, limited by law to U.S. Treasury securities, to seek higher yields. The alternative, Cook said, is cutting hours and services at postal counters, raising prices for mail and packages and closing post offices.

“We are not a business,” he said. “We are not designed to run as a business. And trying to run us as a business is a big part of what’s gone wrong.”

Workers also blasted efforts by Trump and some congressional Republicans to undermine public trust in voting by mail. Despite voting by mail himself, Trump has long spread misinformation and debunked conspiracy theories that connect voting by mail to election fraud.

Passing the SAVE America Act, which would limit mail-in voting, has become the administration’s top legislative priority. And Trump signed an executive order in March – since tied up in a legal challenge – that creates roadblocks for mail-in voters and seeks to expand federal access to states’ voter information.

Cook said USPS employees consider mail-in balloting a “core service that week provide” and one that is growing in popularity locally and nationally.

“Every postal worker takes pride in serving postal customers and we clearly have a stake in protecting the USPS, but we’re not in this alone, everyone has a stake in what happens to the USPS in coming weeks,” said Cook. “We need people to reach out to their members of Congress, regardless of what side of the aisle they are on.”

The APWU represents about 200,000 postal employees nationwide.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Report: Healthcare costs are eroding Minnesotans’ wage gains, and hospital consolidation won’t help

July 22, 2026 by

An independent report issued last month by North Star Policy Action digs into the factors behind Minnesotans’ rapidly rising healthcare costs, warning that proposed health-system acquisitions could make things worse.

The report comes as two Minnesota-based health systems, North Memorial and Allina, are in the process of being sold to South Dakota-based Sanford and California-based Sutter, respectively.

Aaron Rosenthal, research director at the progressive research institute, said those transactions warrant public scrutiny, as they would further a trend of consolidation in the state’s healthcare industry. Twenty years ago, he said, two-thirds of Minnesota providers were independent; today two-thirds are part of a larger system.

Consolidation, he added, “decreases competition and leads to bigger players, who use their increased power to charge patients more.”

The report, “Rising Health Care Spending in Minnesota,” found that specialists in health systems charge 16-20% higher prices for services than independent practices.

Another key finding: healthcare spending in Minnesota increased by 15% between 2019-2023, despite Minnesotans utilizing healthcare services at a lower rate, 3.5% less. Over the same period, hospitals’ operating costs increased by 87%, while their charges for services increased by 116%.

When hospitals charge more for services, of course, insurance companies pass along those higher costs to their customers.

“Most people are quick to blame health insurance companies for their high premiums,” report co-author Jen Schultz, an economics professor at the University of Minnesota, said. “But folks only need to look at their bill or (explanation of benefits) to see another reason: high hospital prices.”

The report found that employee contributions toward health insurance premiums in the state grew 67% over the last 11 years, far outpacing the state’s 42% wage growth.

That means the cost of keeping health insurance has “essentially eroded workers’ wages,” Schultz said.

Minnesotans who purchase their own health insurance are facing even steeper price increases – as much as 54% this year – as federal subsidies that helped reign in marketplace premiums expire.

Data released by the state’s health exchange, MNsure, a week after North Star Policy released its report showed about 17,000 fewer people purchased insurance coverage this year, a decrease of 12% from 2025.

That won’t help contain prices, according to Rosenthal.

“Keeping Minnesotans insured is itself a cost-control strategy,” he said. “Every person who loses coverage … drives up hospitals’ uncompensated care costs.”

The report includes policy recommendations that, the authors argued, could help contain Minnesota’s healthcare spending.

Not surprisingly, hospitals are the target of most proposals. In addition to keeping people insured and addressing the rate of consolidation in the industry, state lawmakers could take aim at hospital prices more directly, authors said.

Indiana recently passed a law capping what its five largest hospital systems can charge patients covered by employer-sponsored insurance plans for certain procedures. If the providers fail to meet the new caps by 2029, they risk losing their tax-exempt status.

Other states have looked to leverage their public employees’ health plans to drive down hospital prices, tying reimbursement rates to those paid by Medicare. Costs for privately insured patients are roughly three times higher than Medicare rates, Rosenthal said.

“The worst thing we could do is treat rising healthcare spending as inevitable,” Rosenthal said. “Federal policy has put Minnesota in a tough spot to be sure. Even so, we have the power to make healthcare more affordable for working families in this state, and we should use it.”

Read the full report on North Star Policy’s website.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Target Field workers call June 22 strike, urge Twins to ‘step up’

June 11, 2026 by

Nariel Green (L) leads fellow Target Field concessions workers in a chant: “Fifty cents won’t pay the rent.”

Got tickets to the Twins’ home game June 22 against the Dodgers at Target Field?

Expect picket lines outside and long lines inside, as concessions workers plan to strike during the opener of a three-game series against the defending World Series champs.

UNITE HERE Local 17 announced the one-day strike outside Target Field this morning. Union officers and rank-and-file members warned fans, the team and its concessionaire, Delaware North Company, that picket lines will go up June 22 unless the sides settle before then.

The bargaining unit brings together about 500 workers in Target Field’s concession stands and premium restaurants. Members voted last month to authorize their negotiators to call a strike, with 81% support.

Union members entered bargaining with Delaware North in April seeking a $20 minimum wage, job protections and a pathway to healthcare benefits for workers at Target Field and other local stadiums.

But in six sessions since then, the union says, management has refused to take those demands seriously.

The two sides are meeting again today, but Local 17 Secretary-Treasurer Sheigh Freeberg said workers’ patience is running out.

“They’ve had our proposals for months,” Freeberg said during a press conference. “We only just got their economic proposal.”

That offer would hold hourly wages flat for some workers and raise others’ by 50 cents. Many Target Field concessions workers earn minimum wage, which is just over $16 per hour in Minneapolis.

Purnell Payne, a bartender at Target Field, said the stadium’s increasing use of nonprofit volunteers to sell concessions raises safety concerns – especially when it comes to alcohol sales.

“Fifty cents won’t pay the rent,” Local 17 member Nariel Green said, leading union supporters in a brief chant.

Green added that Delaware North’s refusal to discuss issues – like faulty equipment, unequal treatment and an increasing reliance on nonprofit volunteers to do union members’ work – shows a lack of respect for the workers who are critical to fans’ experience at the ballpark

“They expect us to show up with a positive attitude when we are treated like second-class citizens,” Green said. “All they have done (in bargaining) is waste our time repeatedly.”

Local 17 has had “minimal” engagement with the Twins about the slow pace of contract negotiations, Freeberg said, but he called on the club to “step up” and “tell Delaware North to come to a fair agreement because the Twins organization will be affected by a strike.”

Local 17 has represented workers in Target Field concession stands since the ballpark opened in 2010. Last fall, about 200 workers in the facility’s premium restaurants won their campaign to join the union too, nearly doubling the size of the bargaining unit – and increasing its leverage at the table.

Local 17’s previous contract expired in January but remains in effect as negotiations continue.

If Delaware North workers stage a strike June 22, it would be the first of its kind at any Twin Cities sports stadium, according to the union.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Union volunteers welcome America’s labor movement to Minnesota

June 8, 2026 by

Volunteers staffing the welcome booth on Day 1 of the convention include (L to R) Megan Lockhart (Painters Local 61), Mary Sansom, Hana Yoshida (SEIU Healthcare) and Miriam Wynn.

Local union volunteers are welcoming the nation’s labor movement to Minneapolis this week and helping the AFL-CIO ensure its biggest event runs smoothly.

About 40 retired and active union members answered the call for volunteers during the AFL-CIO’s 30th Constitutional Convention, which began yesterday and runs through June 10 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Volunteers are stationed throughout a bustling exhibition space, located just off the meeting floor. The space features vendor booths, informational displays, interactive training spaces, a live stage and more.

Barbara Andrew, a member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, traveled from Rochester yesterday to volunteer with her SEIU sister Leslie Kaup of Albert Lea. As delegates entered the convention space, Andrew and Kaup encouraged them to write their personal definitions of “solidarity” on a poster-filled wall.

Leslie Kaup and Barbara Andrew

For Andrew, talking solidarity with strangers was a welcome opportunity. She works in food service for a Mayo Clinic contractor, where workers organized a union nine years ago – after Mayo outsourced their department.

“I fell in love with unions,” she said. “I’ve seen how it helped me and my fellow co-workers.”

It’s a feeling Mary Sansom, a retired member of Machinists (IAM) Local 1833, has known for five decades.

Greeting delegates and answering questions at the welcome booth yesterday, Sansom said it was exciting to see the faces that make up the labor movement – from IAM’s elected leaders to members of the AFL-CIO’s 64 other affiliated unions – as they entered the convention space.

“I’m a 53-year union member, and this is our legacy coming in,” she said. “I’m feeling really proud right now.”

Staffing the swag table (L to R): Sara Miele, Larry Nelson (former CWA) and Bernadine Engeldorf (retired MNA).

Some local volunteers had already made new connections on Day 1 of the convention.

A United Steelworkers delegate asked Miriam Wynn, financial secretary of Minnesota-based Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, to record a message of support for workers in Mississippi who will vote soon in a union election.

“Just to know that they are organizing in Mississippi while our union is organizing here in Rochester, it was actually encouraging for me, and hopefully I was encouraging them,” Wynn said. “Labor everywhere, we need to come together, and that’s what’s happening here.”

For other union members, volunteering at the convention was an opportunity to put Minnesota’s best foot forward after Operation Metro Surge.

Volunteers at the entrance to the convention floor (L to R): Rachel Andersen, Richard Rosivach (Mounds View Education Association), Tess Darmer (Painters Local 61) and MN AFL-CIO organizing director Todd Dahlstrom.

Posted at the entrance to the convention floor, Southdale Hospital nurse Rachel Andersen, a member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said the convention buzzed with much-needed “good energy.”

“It fills my cup, after everything Minnesota’s been through, to see that we still care about each other,” Andersen said. “We’ve been saying ‘solidarity’ for years, but this winter really put the rubber to the road, and it was there when we needed it.”

Some delegates were eager to recognize the resilience Minnesota showed over the winter, retired Minneapolis educator Sara Miele said. And Miele, who lives downtown, said she is eager in turn to show them everything else that her city and state have to offer.

“I’m so excited about making sure people have a wonderful experience here – and come back and back and back,” she laughed.

 – Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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