AFL-CIO convention spotlights strength, solidarity of Minnesota’s labor movement

June 7, 2026 by

Minnesotans who joined the solidarity efforts during Operation Metro Surge take the stage on Day 1 of the convention. (AFL-CIO photo)

Union leaders and activists from across the U.S. are gathering in the Twin Cities this week for the 30th AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, the American labor movement’s biggest event.

The national labor federation picked Minneapolis as the site of its four-day convention well before a violent surge of federal agents in Minnesota drew worldwide outrage over the winter. But among the first orders of business on Day 1 was a recognition of local unions’ role in organizing resistance to the occupation.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, reelected to a five-year term later in the day, turned the Convention Center stage over to three local leaders, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson and Minneapolis RLF President Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou.

The presidents offered visiting delegates an overview of unions’ response to Operation Metro Surge – and the work that prepared Minnesota’s labor movement to meet the moment with solidarity.

The federal occupation saw unions raise funds for mutual aid and legal defense of detained members. Unions tapped into local solidarity networks, hosting training sessions for constitutional observers and preparing members to respond if ICE showed up on their worksite. And union members not only showed up in the streets as observers and demonstrators, but dozens of activists trained to become “union peacekeepers,” who kept marches safe and orderly.

“They thought Minnesota nice meant we would stand by quietly while federal agents disappeared our friends, neighbors and co-workers,” Burnham said. “But they mistook kindness for weakness. They invaded a winter people in winter, and our solidarity froze them in their tracks.”

(AFL-CIO photo)

Delegates on the convention floor rose for a standing ovation as Burnham welcomed anyone in the room who joined the solidarity efforts in Minnesota onto the stage.

“Now they know Americans are not afraid,” Burnham said. “They know if they send ICE into any of your communities, you will fight just as hard.”

Shuler thanked Minnesotans for their “sacrifice and resilience” before returning to the business of the convention – committee reports, elections and a roll call of affiliated unions, which included the 2-million-member Service Employees (SEIU) for the first time in 21 years.

The AFL-CIO also recognized seven new affiliates representing professional athletes, including WNBA players, who this year won historic gains in a new union contract, and Major League Baseball players, who are in a bitter round of negotiations with owners intent on suppressing their pay with a salary cap.

The theme for the 2026 convention is “With You, It’s Better in a Union.” Organizers expected between 1,500 and 2,000 delegates and guests to attend the four-day affair.

Delegates from the AFL-CIO’s 65 affiliated unions and from state and local labor councils come together at conventions to conduct required business and chart the future of the labor movement.

The event will feature prominent guest speakers and expert panelists to discuss issues facing workers and their families, from artificial intelligence to the rising cost of living.

AFL-CIO Minneapolis convention, Sunday June 7, 2026. Afternoon plenary. Photo: Jay Mallin
AFL-CIO Minneapolis convention, Sunday, June 7, 2026. Photos: Jay Mallin

The convention put a spotlight on Minnesota again on Day 1 when the AFL-CIO recognized the state’s labor movement as one of two recipients of the 2025 Meany-Kirkland Human Rights Award, celebrating the most powerful examples of solidarity in action from across the world.

Minnesota shares the award, presented during a dinner reception, with the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP).

The federation’s executive board announced winners of the award in March. Its announcement cited Minnesota union activists’ “courage and commitment to fighting for democratic rights” during the surge that began last December.

Peterson, president of the St. Paul RLF, said the convention was an “exciting opportunity for our nation’s union movement to find inspiration and advance the coalition work that will meet the challenges ahead for working people across the country.”

“The world watched as Minnesotans joined together last winter to protect our neighbors and defend our democracy, and local unions and federated labor bodies, through their organizing work, helped build power and solidarity to meet that moment,” she added.

Both Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond were re-elected on Day 1 after no other nominations emerged from the floor.

Watch video of the convention’s proceedings at aflcio.org.

— Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Nurses picket as Hazelden Betty Ford drags out first-contract talks

June 5, 2026 by

MNA members picket outside Hazelden Betty Ford’s facility in Center City.

Nurses bargaining a first union contract with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation held informational picketing June 2 at the renowned addiction-treatment facility in Center City, looking to raise awareness of their safety and staffing concerns.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association had hoped Hazelden administrators would take a collaborative approach to addressing the issues behind their vote to unionize in January 2025.

But those hopes have fizzled over 16 months of mostly unproductive talks.

“A lot of things that we propose, they’ll propose back that they don’t need it to be written out,” Cara Bergner, a registered nurse in Hazelden’s detox unit, said on the picket line. “They just want it up to management’s discretion, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the contract.

“I think their hopes are that if they put it off, we’ll get tired and give up. But I don’t see that being the case.”

Anne Coleman, another registered nurse in the detox unit, said nurses are bargaining for changes that will make their jobs more sustainable – and they’re doing it because they believe in the Hazelden Betty Ford mission.

“We take people in a crisis situation who, a lot of the time, come in very broken, and I just love to see them get their lives back, to get the confidence and light back in their eyes,” Coleman said. “I love to see them heal.

“We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t love the mission, the patients and the many things that Hazelden has done for the community and nationwide. But the healthcare system itself is broken, and, unfortunately, it’s trickled down to Hazelden.”

As the rate of violence against healthcare workers rises nationwide, Hazelden nurses are increasingly treating patients under the influence of highly potent drugs like fentanyl. Union members say de-escalation tactics, which they are trained to use when a patient becomes violent, are insufficient alone.

“We’re bringing in higher-acuity, more severe cases of people who have mental-health issues and severe addictions,” Bergner said. “We don’t have any other safeguards (besides de-escalation) and any true, straightforward protocols for staff members’ safety.”

In bargaining, nurses have floated proposals like round-the-clock security, panic buttons and minimum staffing levels. Some units, Bergner and Coleman said, have just one nurse on the floor at times, leaving staff overwhelmed.

Perhaps predictably, an increasing number of Hazelden nurses are leaving the bedside. Turnover has affected about a third of MNA’s 60-person bargaining unit of registered and licensed practical nurses, according to the union.

Coleman said factors behind the attrition include stagnant wages over the last two years, recent benefit cuts and management’s unwillingness to agree to measures that would make nurses feel safer and more supported on the job.

Newly hired nurses are leaving too. “They come here,” Bergner said, “and before they really get a love for the job, they’re like, ‘This space is crazy.’”

For nurses who remain, the turnover creates more short staffing and extends their shifts. Coleman said she has worked as many as 16 hours straight.

“I’m happy to do it because I want my patients to have the support they need and the safety,” she said. “However, it’s not sustainable.

“We’ve got so many experienced nurses who really, truly care for our patients that we’ve lost. All that we’re asking is for Hazelden to work with us.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Boycott of REI’s anniversary sale begins today

May 15, 2026 by

Over 70,000 REI Co-op members have pledged to boycott the outdoors retailer’s anniversary sale, which runs today through May 25, in a show of solidarity with workers at 11 unionized stores across the country, including one in Maple Grove.

REI Union members voted in March to authorize a boycott of the co-op’s largest event of the year and immediately began appealing to shoppers for support. (Take the boycott pledge.)

Workers say the boycott is a response to REI’s decision in February to declare bargaining at an impasse and implement the economic terms of its last, best and final offer, which over 98% of union members voted down in January.

The imposed terms cut benefits, starting wages and raises for many union members. The REI Union’s bargaining team, which brings together members of the Retail, Wholesale and Depart-ment Store Union (RWDSU) and six United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) locals, have called the move union-busting – and illegal.

Jacob Lish, a sales specialist at the Maple Grove store who represents UFCW Local 663 on the nationwide bargaining team, noted that REI implemented only the punitive economic terms of its final offer, not tentative agreements reached earlier in talks that introduced new rights for union workers.

“It’s really important for us that REI hears that its members don’t support the union-busting they’ve been trying to do this whole time,” Lish said.

Union members are hoping the anniversary-event boycott delivers just that message.

In addition to co-opmembers who have taken the boycott pledge, the nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, has endorsed the boycott, adding REI to its “do-not-buy” list.

“Their bottom (line) is what they care about at the bargaining table,” Lish said “Even our most modest asks are too expensive; they tell us they can’t afford it.

“So by asking members to withhold their money for those 15 days, we think, is really going to impact REI – and hopefully drive them back to the table to reach an agreement with us.”

Union negotiators say they were “within inches” of a tentative agreement with REI before talks broke down. Management, they say, refused to guarantee union members wages on the same level as their non-union peers – a poison pill designed to thwart future organizing.

More recently, REI has demanded union members accept non-disparagement language in their contracts that would prohibit speaking out publicly against the company.

“REI has refused to offer us a fair contract, despite our willingness to compromise, and instead has insisted on provisions that would prevent more workers from joining the REI Union and that would ban us from speaking out,” Alex Pollitt, a worker at the REI in Bellingham, Wash., said in a statement. “Their anti-union stance is deeply incompatible with the values REI claims to profess.”

In June 2023, REI workers in Maple Grove voted 22-4 in favor of joining UFCW Local 663. After the vote, workers said they looked forward to winning a contract that addressed the rising cost of living, ensured consistent and adequate hours and improved staffing in their store.

Maple Grove was the seventh REI location to unionize. Organizing has continued, with workers at a twelfth store, in San Diego, scheduled to vote in a union election May 27-28.

Despite its reputation as a progressive-friendly retailer, REI has dug deep into the union-avoidance playbook since workers in New York unionized the first store in March 2022.

But the approach has not gone unnoticed by the co-op’s members.

When the REI union campaigned last year to elect two labor-friendly environmental leaders to the co-op’s board of directors, REI refused to put either on the ballot. The union then encouraged members to vote “no” on the co-op executives’ hand-picked candidates, who were running unopposed in the board election.

It worked, as over 115,000 members responded to the union’s appeal.

Two months later, REI agreed to establish a national bargaining structure with the union to settle contracts at its unionized stores – and to provide wage increases and bonuses that it had withheld from workers for the previous three years.

Now, REI members are being asked to deliver a similar message to executives by boycotting their co-op’s anniversary sale.

“We know REI really values themselves as a member co-op, or at least they say they do,” Lish said. “And we already know members support our goal of having some rights in the workplace and basic dignity as workers.

“With that really broad support from the membership, we think this boycott is going to be the most effective way to drive the response we are looking for.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Research into union busting in MN nursing homes draws lawmaker scrutiny

April 17, 2026 by

Minnesota nursing home workers attend a Senate Labor Committee hearing on rampant union-busting in the heavily subsidized industry.

Authors of two recently published reports on union busting in Minnesota nursing homes presented their findings to the Senate Labor Committee last week, raising concerns among some lawmakers that public funds are being used to stifle worker voice.

Committee Chair Jen McEwen (D-Duluth) called the new research “kind of a bombshell.” Sen. Sandy Pappas (D-St. Paul) said she was “pretty shocked.”

But the findings came as no surprise to about two dozen nursing home workers in the hearing-room gallery, many of whom had been on the business end of management’s union-avoidance playbook.

Addressing the committee, Cassandra Thomas, a certified nursing assistant at Chapel View Home in Hopkins, described the changes she and her co-workers saw after they petitioned for a union election last year, like town-hall meetings with free food and regular check-ins with an out-of-town consultant.

The message, Thomas said, was clear. “They kept talking about how much the union would cost us,” she said. “But I wondered how much all this cost them, instead of just giving us that raise.”

Chapel View workers won their union election in December, joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa. They are working toward a first contract that delivers that raise – and addresses concerns over staffing, safety and client care that sparked their organizing drive.

But the anti-union campaign left a bitter taste in workers’ mouths – especially after they learned the estimated price tag of Chapel View’s union-avoidance campaign: as much as $400,000, or $2,800 per worker, according to Labor Lab researcher Teke Wiggin, who also addressed the Senate committee.

“It was so frustrating to hear how much they spent to try and stop us,” Thomas told lawmakers. “This all happened while we were working short. They could have spent that money on staff to care for our residents.

“How is this OK?”

Wiggin presented findings from Labor Lab’s new report, “The Price of Repression,” which studied five union-busting campaigns at nursing homes in Minnesota from 2022 to 2025.

The report uses anti-union consultants’ public disclosures, industry billing rates, campaign manuals and independent research to estimate the price tag of those union-busting campaigns, which ran from $140,000 to over $400,000.

Wiggin compared those costs to the amount employers could have spent on wage increases for impacted workers had they recognized the union voluntarily, an amount that ranges from 3.5% to 20% – or $1,400 to $7,300 per worker.

“Our report underscores that when nursing homes really want to find money and resources, they do,” Wiggin told lawmakers.

In a separate report on Minnesota nursing homes, Columbia University researchers surveyed 2,000 certified nursing assistants statewide and uncovered a “pattern of anti-union tactics” in the industry – especially in nursing homes that rely heavily on public funding.

Sociologist Adam Reich, one of six researchers who worked on the Columbia report, walked lawmakers through two case studies of union-busting in Minnesota nursing homes.

The report includes firsthand accounts from workers reacting to their bosses’ anti-union campaign, including misinformation, so-called “captive audience meetings” and, most shockingly, appeals to nursing home residents and their families to encourage caregivers to vote “no.”

At one nonprofit nursing home with a religious affiliation, an administrator leaned on Biblical proverbs to suggest that union organizers were wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“One story that sticks in my mind is a worker whose manager told them that they were going to talk to the pastor of the church they both attended about how this worker was organizing,” Reich said.

Asked by lawmakers what policy recommendations might come out of the two reports, Reich suggested a precise analysis of how nursing homes are using public funds, and whether they are being used to thwart organizing efforts.

“That seems deeply problematic in a state that I know cares deeply about the integrity of public funding,” he said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Lawmakers take up educators’ call for new insurance pool

March 24, 2026 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Report exposes union-busting in Minnesota nursing homes

March 20, 2026 by

Minnesota nursing home workers who don’t have a union on the job have launched a new advocacy group, Nursing Home Workers United. Organizers rallied March 12 in St. Paul before a meeting of the state’s Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board. The new organization formed, in part, as a response to employer groups’ legal effort to disband the board altogether.

Researchers at Columbia University issued a report last week that shines a light on rampant union-busting in Minnesota’s nursing-home industry, particularly in facilities that rely heavily on public subsidies.

The report, “Democracy Denied at the Bedside: Union Avoidance in Minnesota’s Nursing Home Sector,” draws on years of qualitative research and a statewide survey of nearly 2,000 certified nursing assistants to reveal a “pattern of anti-union tactics” in the state’s nursing homes.

Columbia Labor Lab sociologist Adam Reich, one of six researchers who worked on the report, said the team began digging into labor relations in Minnesota’s nursing-home industry shortly after the pandemic, which sparked a surge in union-organizing efforts among health care workers.

In addition to analyzing data – from their CNA survey, from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and from the Minnesota Department of Health – researchers embedded themselves into multiple union organizing efforts from 2021 to 2025.

The report includes firsthand accounts from workers reacting to their bosses’ anti-union campaign, including misinformation, so-called “captive audience meetings” and, most shockingly, appeals to nursing home residents and their families to encourage caregivers to vote “no.”

At one nonprofit nursing home with a religious affiliation, an administrator leaned on Biblical proverbs to suggest that union organizers were wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“One story that sticks in my mind is a worker whose manager told them that they were going to talk to the pastor of the church they both attended about how this worker was organizing,” Reich said.

But the report’s key finding is the crossover between homes that receive public funds and those that run union-avoidance campaigns. It’s already raising questions among unions in the industry about whether public funds are being used to stifle workers’ voices.

Rasha Ahmad Sharif, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa’s executive vice president, said workers deserve answers.

“While not surprising, we are still outraged to see that money that workers have been pushing to go to essential workers caring for Minnesotans is being spent trying to stop workers from forming unions because employers are too scared of their workers practicing their federal rights and gaining the bare minimum that their employers refused to give them,” Ahmad Sharif said.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , ,

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

February 27, 2026 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

MN unions to employers: Keep ICE out of our workplaces

February 4, 2026 by

Members of several health care unions gather outside HCMC for a “unity break” to decry ICE’s presence in their facilities.

As federal immigration raids continue in the Twin Cities, several local unions are stepping up to demand their employers protect both workers and the people they serve.

From health care workers and letter carriers to transit workers and educators, the message has been clear: keep ICE out of our workplaces.

Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers union, today joined two school districts in a lawsuit seeking to block ICE and Border Protection agents from conducting operations on or near public schools, arguing that recent federal actions have disrupted, education, endangered students and driven families away from classrooms.

“Students can’t learn, and educators can’t teach, when there are armed, masked federal agents stationed within view of classroom windows, sometimes for days on end,” Education Minnesota President Monica Byron said. “ICE and Border Patrol need to stay away from our schools so students can go there safely each day to learn without fear, and so that our members can focus on teaching instead of constantly reacting to the shocking and unconstitutional actions of federal agents.”

At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, hospitality workers, support staff and drivers with Uber and Lyft saw an escalation of immigration activity in early January.

At a press conference with union and faith leaders, airport workers described being stopped by federal agents on their way to work – or even on the job – and asked for documentation that they are in the country legally.

Uber Driver Hamsa Hussein said federal agents at the airport were clearly stopping drivers based on their appearance.

Airport workers, Uber and Lyft drivers and clergy held a press conference at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport after several union members were detained at the facility last month.

“This is not how things are supposed to be working,” he said. “It’s about intimidation, not safety. No one should be treated like a suspect for showing up to work.”

UNITE HERE Local 17, which represents over 250 food-service workers at the airport, reported that over a dozen of its members had been detained last month – on both sides of MSP’s security checkpoints. Geof Paquette, an internal organizer with Local 17, said anyone working behind the checkpoint must pass a rigorous federal background check.

“All of these workers who were kidnapped had the proper authorization to be working in an airport behind security,” he said. “They’re doing it the right way. They’re doing it the legal way – and they’re still targeted.”

Many hospitality workers, as a result, are simply staying home, Paquette added. He noted that it’s also happening at the airport and in restaurants and hotels, many occupied by ICE agents themselves.

Local 17 is helping the families of members who have been detained track and support their loved ones. The union also is raising funds – over $100,000 to date – to support workers and their families with food, rent and other costs.

Union members working in local hospitals, meanwhile, reported seeing federal agents lurking near their campuses or waiting outside patients’ rooms – with some patients even being shackled to their hospital beds.

Dr. Zach Perez, a first-year resident at Hennepin County Medical Center and a member of the SEIU-affiliated Committee of Interns and Residents, said an alarming number of patients are skipping appointments, not picking up medications and forgoing treatment.

“This is an extremely preventable public health crisis, and it’s created by ICE,” Perez said during a unity break with members of AFSCME, the Minnesota Nurses Association and the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild outside HCMC on Jan. 23.

Perez added a message for business leaders, hospital executives and elected officials: “Work together to rid our community of this disease.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

New state grants support suicide prevention in construction industry

February 3, 2026 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

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

January 30, 2026 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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