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

September 25, 2026 by Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: , , , , ,

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

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

Workers lead push for community guarantees before potential Allina, North Memorial sales

July 14, 2026 by

Health care workers line the entrance to a public hearing in St. Paul on the proposed Sutter-Allina sale.

Unionized healthcare workers are leading a campaign to secure binding commitments from two large, out-of-state health care systems looking to expand their reach in Minnesota, seeking guarantees around patient access, workplace standards, use of artificial intelligence and other issues.

A coalition of labor, faith-based and community organizations want so-called “community benefits agreements,” or CBAs, in place before two proposed acquisitions that, if approved by the state, would reshape the local healthcare sector: Sutter Health’s takeover of Allina Health and Sanford’s acquisition of North Memorial.

Advocates made the case for CBAs at public hearings last month held by Attorney General Keith Ellison, after their efforts to engage directly with executives at Sutter and Sanford stalled.

Wanda Malden, a member of the faith group ISAIAH, said executives at California-based Sutter Health appeared not to take workers and patients’ request for a CBA seriously.

“We sent them a letter last week, and just this weekend they wrote back a letter that said, basically, that we should trust them,” Malden said outside Ellison’s July 13 hearing into the Sutter-Allina deal in St. Paul.

But several current Sutter workers, who traveled from northern California to Minnesota for the hearing, warned union and community members here to be cautious with their trust. Sarah Pineda, a surgery scheduler and member of the Service Employees (SEIU-UHW), said her union sees “daily violations” of their contract at Sutter’s eight unionized facilities.

“This is a giant that you are going to be battling,” Pineda told Minnesota workers. “It is very important that you guys get that community benefits agreement because you are going to need it.”

Sutter Health worker Sarah Pineda traveled from northern California to attend the hearing.

Legislation passed in 2023 gives the Attorney General’s Office authority to block large sales or mergers of healthcare systems if it determines the transaction is “contrary to the public interest.”

The easiest way Sutter and Sanford can allay doubts that their expansion plans are in the public interest, union members said, is by signing onto CBAs.

“Union workers know that words don’t mean anything until they are written down and agreed upon by both sides, which is all we are asking for,” SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa member Kia Pulle said.

Advocates said CBAs are rare in the healthcare sector but have been used in publicly funded developments like stadiums. With mergers and consolidation on the rise in the industry – and with data suggesting the result is often higher costs, lower quality of care and reductions in service – CBAs offer a voice in the process to those too often left out.

Dr. Matt Hoffman, a member of Doctors Council SEIU who practices at Allina’s clinic in Vadnais Heights, called on Sutter to negotiate a CBA that guarantees it won’t “jack up prices.” He said it should also protect quality patient care, safeguard union rights and benefits, and deliver meaningful investment in the community – instead of closing more birthing centers, clinics and hospital wards in the Allina system.

“If a California company is coming to our town to run our health care, at the very least we need a signed, guaranteed community benefits agreement that will make sure every Minnesotan has access to excellent, affordable health care,” Hoffman added.

South Dakota-based Sanford Health, meanwhile, has made some commitments in advance of its proposed acquisition of North Memorial, which employs over 6,500 people at two hospitals and several clinics in the Minneapolis suburbs.

Sanford signed a letter of understanding with the Minnesota Nurses Association covering members at North Memorial’s long-unionized Robbinsdale hospital to protect their contract and pension benefits. Sanford also agreed to honor a contract at the Maple Grove hospital, where nearly 600 nurses voted to unionize last year but are still bargaining a first contract.

Allina nurse Karen Norman urged Sutter to reach a similar agreement with MNA and other unions – but also to work toward a CBA that protects all workers and patients.

“Minnesotans deserve health systems that realize serving patients and communities is more important than serving corporate bottom lines and bloated bonuses,” Norman said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Community, Union Events 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: , , , ,

Guild members rally for respect, protections as talks begin with Pioneer Press

June 9, 2026 by

Guild members rally before bargaining at the Pioneer Press.

Union members at the Pioneer Press today opened negotiations with the newspaper’s hedge-fund ownership intent on bargaining a contract that respects their work, protects their safety and delivers wage and benefit gains.

After a brief rally outside the newspaper’s offices on Water Street, about two dozen members of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild walked into bargaining together, hoping to show Alden Global Capital the faces behind the numbers on its balance sheets.

The Guild represents over 50 newsroom and advertising employees at the Pioneer Press, and they have given over 600 years of combined service to the company. That’s worth fighting for, unit vice chair Jared Kaufman said.

“This contract negotiation, this thing we do every three years or so — this is our one chance to fight for the really big stuff,” he said. “That’s why this matters. The gates are open for us all to make the changes we want to see.”

In bargaining, the Guild will look to hold the line against potential use of generative artificial intelligence in place of union members’ work.

Members also want the employer to invest in the Pioneer Press — in workers’ wages and benefits, but also in their physical safety, whether it’s protections against repetitive motion injuries for workers at video editing terminals or personal protective equipment for journalists covering civil unrest.

“We deserve a company that gives us the support and resources we need to do our jobs,” reporter Imani Cruzen said during the rally. “I hope in bargaining we can ask, what does Alden bring to the table for us?”

But since it acquired the Pioneer Press as part of a larger deal that took MediaNews Group out of bankruptcy in 2010, Alden has slashed jobs both locally and in newsrooms across the country. At the time of the sale, the St. Paul paper employed over 100 journalists.

A recent Guild survey suggests the cuts have come at a cost to workplace morale. But Kaufman, a food and features reporter, said the bargaining team is energized to fight for a contract that reflects Guild members’ value to both the company and the community.

“Look around,” he told members gathered in a circle at the rally. “We’re a catch. They should be fighting to keep us, not squeezing us until we can’t handle it anymore.”

Cruzen has seen what can happen when there’s no organized effort to fight for local media. Staffing in the newsroom where she worked before joining the Pioneer Press is down to just one reporter, who works remotely.

“I don’t want that future for us,” she said.

— Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

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

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