Benefit concert Nov. 1 will showcase arts community’s support for strike-ready opera musicians

October 26, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Opera musicians announce their strike-authorization vote. (photo courtesy Musicians of the MN Opera Orchestra)

Orchestra musicians are tapping into solidarity from the arts community in another tough round of contract negotiations with the Minnesota Opera.

Members of Twin Cities Musicians Union–AFM Local 30-73, who voted unanimously this month to authorize a strike against the opera company, will hold a benefit concert at 7 p.m. Nov. 1 in the University of Minnesota’s Ted Mann Concert Hall to raise funds in case of a work stoppage. Tickets are not required for admission, but donations are welcome.

The Musicians of the Minnesota Opera Orchestra will be joined by vocalists from the opera chorus, esteemed soloists and Minnesota Orchestra players, all under the direction of former Minnesota Opera Music Director Michael Christie.

“It will be a glorious celebration of what we are actually able to provide and what we want to provide,” violist Susan Janda said.

The show of support, Janda and fellow members of the orchestra musicians’ bargaining team said, reflects the shared interest arts workers and patrons – and arts teachers and students – have in union contracts that respect and retain top talent.

“The patrons and supporters we talk with care about opera, they care about the artists, they care about what happens on that stage and in the orchestra pit, and they want this company to succeed,” Rebecca Arons, a cellist and member of the orchestra musicians’ bargaining committee, said. “So do we.”

Compensation has been the primary sticking point in the union’s contract negotiations with the Minnesota Opera. Orchestra players’ pay has remained flat – at $12,000 per season – since they settled their last union contract nearly four years ago.

Those negotiations stretched deep into the opera company’s season and saw union members appeal directly to patrons for solidarity. Musicians handed out leaflets before performances at the Ordway Center and targeted opera board members with an email campaign.

This time around, union members authorized a strike before rehearsals even began for the Oct. 31 season opener, hoping to sound the alarm on proposals from management that, they believe, raise concerns about the company’s artistic direction.

The opera’s representatives at the bargaining table have said the company has “no appetite for increasing the salary of the orchestra musicians,” Janda said, even after the four-year freeze. At the same time, opera staff and leadership have received 2% annual raises in recent years, and the company’s net assets have grown by $13.8 million since 2020.

Musicians have proposed a 4% increase, which would amount to about $80,000 in the first year. That’s roughly 0.5% of the Minnesota Opera’s operating budget – and likely close to what the company is paying the union-busting law firm Littler Mendelson, which also represents Starbucks, to stonewall musicians at the bargaining table.

“Management has told us they can afford our proposal,” Arons, the musicians’ lead negotiator, said. “They have also told us they simply don’t want to.”

For Janda and others, it raises the question of whether the Minnesota Opera sees a future without orchestra musicians – a question they believe patrons would like to hear answered, too.

“I don’t know about you, but when I think of an opera, you would imagine that there’s an orchestra that goes with it,” Janda said. “Not people singing over a track or a chamber music group, we’re talking a full symphonic orchestra. That’s our concern.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Union Events Tagged With: , , ,

Video game workers in Bloomington ready to strike for first contract

October 23, 2026 by Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Elevator Constructors retiree recognized for a lifetime of leadership at national convention

October 22, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Terri Stave accepts the 2026 Tradeswomen Build Nations Lifetime Achievement Award in Houston. (photo courtesy NABTU)

Terri Stave almost skipped this year’s Tradeswomen Build Nations convention. Instead, she came home with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the nation’s largest annual gathering of union tradeswomen in Houston last month.

The award, presented Oct. 11 in front of about 5,000 conventiongoers, came as a surprise to Stave. The retired member of Elevator Constructors (IUEC) Local 9 said she was overwhelmed by the moment, given that her mother had died just nine days before.

But it came as no surprise to people who have worked alongside Stave in the field, at the union hall or in her advocacy efforts with Women Building Success, a labor-backed nonprofit organization that promotes Minnesota tradeswomen.

“Terri’s contributions go far beyond the work she has done as a business representative,” Local 9 Business Manager Ryan Parkos said. “She has helped shape our local union, strengthened our trade and created a legacy that will continue to influence generations of elevator constructors for years to come.”

Stave became the first woman sworn in as business agent of an IUEC local – not only Local 9, but anywhere in the U.S. and Canada – after winning an election in 2015. More recently, she became the first female member to retire out of Local 9.

Throughout her career and even into retirement, Parkos said, Stave sought opportunities to help other women thrive in the construction trades, too.

“Terri Stave’s legacy is about more than being the first,” Parkos said. “It is about what that first represents, the doors it opens, the example it sets and the opportunities it creates for those who follow. History will remember her achievement, but the true measure of its impact will be seen in the women who enter our trade, the members who step into leadership and the generations of elevator constructors who benefit from a union that continues to grow stronger and more inclusive.”

Stave, who lives in Baldwin, Wis., reflected on her career, the challenges facing women working in the trades and what the national recognition means to her in this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

UA: How did you find out you were going to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award?

TS: I didn’t find out until there were 5,000 people sitting there. It was a big plenary in a great big room with over 5,000 women and advocates in attendance, and Sean McGarvey (president of North America’s Building Trades Unions) is the guy who gave me the award.

UA: You didn’t know you had been nominated?

TS: I did not. I wasn’t going to go this year because my mother passed away, but I didn’t get around to canceling my flight. I’d talked to my mother two weeks before, and my mother knows I’ve gone every year since 2014. I told her I was going to cancel my flight, and she told me I should go. I said, “We’ll see, mom.”

My mother took a turn pretty fast. We called hospice on Wednesday, they brought the bed Thursday and she passed away on Friday. So I talked to my siblings, and they said why don’t you just go because there’s nothing you can do here right now. And I thought it would probably be good to get away for a bit.

(photo courtesy NABTU)

UA: The emotions must have been overwhelming. Did you have to say something?

TS: It was almost like I couldn’t keep it together. They give you the podium, and I’m like, “Oh my God.” The conference center is huge – they can’t have it at a hotel any more, it’s gotten too big. I thanked NABTU, I thanked the IUEC and then I kind of broke down and told them that my mother had passed away. It was pretty emotional, pretty overwhelming, but what an honor. You have so many people who could be chosen, and they chose me.

UA: What kind of an influence was your mother on your career path?

TS: My mother had two girls that were both in the elevator trades. My older sister was also a union mechanic for 15 years. My mother was very supportive, and my father was a union carpenter. She taught me to have a great work ethic, and always wanted us to help others. And that’s what you’re doing as a business agent.

UA: Looking back, what made you want to serve your local as an agent?

TS: I had started going to meetings seven or eight years earlier, and got my start as the door warden. That’s a position nobody wants, right? I ran for door warden and got to meet people, and then it’s, “Why don’t you run for executive board?” I served two terms there and became the chair, and it was actually the business manager at the time, Dave Osrud, who said, “Why don’t you run for business rep?”

I never looked at anything with the elevator trade as being the only female. I just went and did my job. So when I ran for business rep and beat the incumbent by quite a few votes, there were some situations where I didn’t look at it that way but other people did. I didn’t know I was the first female until after I got the role. Dave Osrud is like, “I think you’re the first female. You know you’re going to go to meetings and be the only female in the room?” And I told him it’s been that way my whole career. That was nothing new to me.

UA: Were there challenges?

TS: I did have a tough time. People came out of the woodwork after I got in that role, and I heard things like, they didn’t want a woman running the local and whatever. I couldn’t fight that. I couldn’t fight being a female. And I figured that I knew how to fix elevators when I went in there, so I just went back and fixed elevators.

At the time I was very angry about it.  But you know what? I pulled up my bootstraps, and I went to Tradeswomen Build Nations the year after that just to show the young generation coming in that if you get knocked down, you just pull yourself back up and keep going. I think that was probably the most important conference that I went to.

UA: Spaces like Tradeswomen Build Nations reflect an intentional investment from Building Trades unions like yours in making their organizations more welcoming and diverse. At a time when a lot of organizations are pulling back from those investments, why does this work remain important?

TS: If you can do the job, why wouldn’t a woman want to have the great income, the great benefits? The trades give opportunities to women and men to live a great life, a comfortable life with great benefits and great pay. If you work hard and go to work every day, you can succeed. It shouldn’t matter if you’re male, female, black, white. The trades offer a career.

By having things like Tradeswomen Build Nations, you meet people who are the only woman in their local. It gives the women an avenue to communicate and ask questions and find information they might be too afraid to ask their business manager. It makes them feel like they’re not alone.

UA: When did you feel like you knew you belonged?

TS: When I started, I was 19 years old. I think it takes you a good 10 years until you go, “I think I’ve got this. I can fix an elevator.” Yes, I ran across problems being a female in the trades, but I tried to never take it home. I figured I had just as much right to be there and work hard as the next person. I don’t even know that I ever wanted to quit when I was young. I did as a business agent, though. You work all day on an elevator, and you can see what you fixed. You work all day as an agent – on the phones, answering emails – and then you go, what’d I do today? There are no thank-you’s.

UA: Colleagues say your leadership has made the craft more inclusive. How have you tried to do that, and what work remains to be done?

TS: I think just going to meetings. Just being there, that’s half the battle. But I would approach any of the apprentices – I don’t care if it’s male or females. I think people see you, and communicating with people is the best thing you can do. I want them to see that someone can start and finish and have a career in the elevator trade. I want them to think, “Well, if Terri can do it …”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

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

September 25, 2026 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Organizing, 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: , , , , , , , ,
Next Page»