Union members at No Kings: ‘We have to show solidarity’

October 20, 2025 by

Union members gather outside the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis before walking together to “No Kings.”

At “No Kings” demonstrations across the state Saturday, Minnesotans turned their individual anger over the alarming, anti-democratic trajectory of President Donald Trump’s second term into a collective display of strength, unity and hope.

Many labor unions endorsed “No Kings” events both here and across all 50 states.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest labor federation, teamed with three other groups to organize the peaceful march in Minneapolis that saw thousands clog downtown streets for several blocks Saturday afternoon.

Union members who joined the march cited a wide range of motivating factors. But they agreed that “No Kings” was an opportunity to leverage the power of solidarity against Trump’s far-reaching attacks – on federal workers and their unions, on democracy and the rule of law, on immigrants, on public services, on the LGBTQ+ community and more.

“I could keep going and going,” Education Minnesota Local 2209 member Beth Kowski laughed after beginning to list the concerns that inspired her to march Saturday.

Beth Kowski (L) and Education Minnesota retiree Marsh Jarvela.

Kowski, and educator in Intermediate District 287, joined a pre-march meetup for union members at the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis. After a brief rally, union members walked to “No Kings” together, forming a labor contingent of about 200.

“Unions have a collective power and voice that is crucial at this juncture,” Kowski said. “We have to be together and be firm in our conviction. Silence is complicity.”

AFSCME Local 2864 President Amanda Gustafson, who marched with fellow Hennepin County employees, agreed.

“We have to show solidarity with people who are seeing everything fall apart right now,” Gustafson said. “We see all of the communities that are being attacked, and many of us (in unions) are people who are members of those communities as well.”

That includes union members in the federal workforce. Trump has been attacking their jobs, their union rights and the services they deliver since January.

For Miranda Kiwelu, a program support assistant at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, seeing so many people reject Trump’s agenda at “No Kings” felt “amazing.”

“We definitely have support, but I don’t know that federal employees feel that way now because it’s been nonstop attacks left and right,” said Kiwelu, a member of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1969 who serves as a young-worker coordinator for AFGE District 8.

Union members cross the Third Street bridge together on their way to “No Kings” in Minneapolis.

“No Kings” took place on the 18th day of a government shutdown, which the Trump administration has used as an excuse to continue its attempts – illegally, according to AFGE and several courts – to slash federal payrolls, redirect spending authorized by Congress and inflict pain on Kiwelu and other federal employees.

“By the time this is done, we’re going to have 1.3 million federal employees out of a job or impacted,” she said.

But in extending the shutdown, Trump and Republicans who control Congress are also refusing to address steep cuts to Medicaid and to subsidies that keep health coverage affordable on public exchanges like MNsure.

Health care workers like SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa member Viktor Solberg said they were marching at “No Kings” for themselves and the people who rely on them for care.

“It’s not just our jobs, it’s the ability of our clients to live their lives,” said Solberg, who provides in-home care funded by Medicaid.

“Health care is being cut by billions, and we can’t stand for that,” pharmacy tech Kyle Johnson, also an SEIU member, added. “We’re standing up for our profession and the community at large.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Local veterans, workers call out union busting at VA

November 11, 2020 by

Workers at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis, members of AFGE Local 1969, rallied for a fair contract Oct. 29, with support from activists in the local chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Local veterans and union members who staff the Minneapolis VA Hospital have been publicly calling out the Trump administration in recent months for understaffing in VA facilities and a string of attacks on VA workers’ rights.

Members of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents about 260,000 VA workers, have rallied and demonstrated relentlessly at the busy intersection of Hiawatha Avenue and Highway 62, near the hospital. Their events are drawing support from activists in the Minnesota chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Both veterans and workers say they are worried privatization is the ultimate goal Trump and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie have in mind.

“It’s just another effort to destabilize the VA because, ultimately, they want to privatize the VA,” AFGE District 8 Vice President Gregg James said. “There are trillions of dollars available if millions of veterans have to go downtown to ge their care.”

On the campaign trail, President-elect Joe Biden promised a course correction at the VA. He committed to begin filling the estimated 50,000 vacant positions at the agency and to restoring workers’ union protections.

But much of the damage done by Trump can’t be undone on inauguration day, workers say.

By executive order and federal rulemaking, Wilkie and the president have chipped away at workers’ bargaining power. The measures restrict workers’ access to union representation and limit their eligibility for union membership. A new proposal, James said, would bar unions from collecting attorneys’ fees from the government as part of a judgment for unpaid wages.

At the same time, contract negotiations between the agency and the AFGE have dragged on for what feels like “forever” to Christine Schoenbechler, a food service worker at Minneapolis VA.

“They won’t come to the table,” the vice president of AFGE Local 1969 said. “Wilkie is not making management negotiate with the union. They’ve just walked away.”

The agency’s contract proposals would make it easier for managers to fire VA workers and strip workers from having a say in shift changes, pay scales and more. Union members say the changes would make it easier to silence workers who blow the whistle on abuse, discrimination or unsafe conditions — of particular concern during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our benefits and protections, everything is at stake,” Schoenbechler said. “It’s unreal. It’s unbelievable. It’s like something I’ve never seen.”

Rather than engaging in a give and take at the bargaining table or with a federal mediator, James said, VA negotiators are pushing their demands to an impasse panel, stacked with presidential appointees.

“Normally, the impasse panel will only take a case after the federal mediator has made sure both parties have done their work,” James said. “It’s union busting, right out in the open.”

James said the AFGE urges supporters to contact their members of Congress and ask them to call on President Trump and Secretary Wilkie to get serious about contract talks at the VA.

“Because we’re on the verge of losing it,” he said.

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

Union members rally in Minneapolis to end shutdown

January 10, 2019 by

Workers call on lawmakers to reopen the federal government – and put people back to work – during a rally near the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis.

 

Tomorrow, tens of thousands of federal employees won’t get their regularly scheduled paychecks. Today, their union family rallied in Minneapolis – and cities across the U.S. – to say that’s not OK.

Dozens of union members and retirees joined a demonstration along Hiawatha Avenue, just blocks from the Veterans Administration Medical Center. They called on President Trump and members of Congress to end the federal government shutdown and put federal employees back to work.

Gregg James, vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said lawmakers should “do their jobs and get the federal government back open – and not use us as pawns in their political game.”

An estimated 5,470 federal employees in Minnesota are affected by the shutdown.

Some are furloughed from their jobs. Transportation Security Administration agents, food safety inspectors, guards at four federal prison and other employees are working without pay.

Several workers from the VA Medical Center joined the rally over their lunch break. They aren’t directly impacted by the shutdown, as funding for their agency is in place through the end of the fiscal year. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t angry.

“I’m thinking about my brothers and sisters who are out there working for free and that are furloughed,” said Bryant Thomas, a St. Paul resident who works in sterile processing at the hospital. “There are 800,000, and I’m out here for them.”

AFGE, which represents some 670,000 federal workers nationwide, organized the rally, but members of several other unions – the Machinists, Education Minnesota, AFSCME Council 5, OPEIU and others – stood in solidarity with federal workers.

Brad Lehto, secretary-treasurer of the state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, pinned blame for the shutdown on President Trump, who on Sunday told reporters he could “relate” to the struggles of federal workers going without pay.

“Donald Trump just thinks you can ask your father for money,” Lehto said. “It doesn’t work that way for everyone.”

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Shutdown a ‘lose-lose scenario’ for veterans, furloughed workers

October 8, 2013 by
Stanley Walton, locked out of his job with the U.S. Veterans Benefits Administration, joins a picket outside the Whipple Federal Building on Fort Snelling.

Stanley Walton, a locked-out member of AFGE Local 1969, joins a picket outside the Whipple Federal Building on Fort Snelling.

Is Stanley Walton’s work essential? That depends on whom you ask.

Walton was one of 7,000 “non-essential” employees furloughed by the U.S. Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) today. He and about 150 others reported to the Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling, where they were handed letters instructing them to stay home until lawmakers in Washington had resolved the partial federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

Although the government considers Walton’s work non-essential, the homeless veterans who rely on him probably disagree. Walton says he connects “our most vulnerable veterans” with the housing, medical and other benefits they’ve earned as a result of their service.

That work doesn’t stop just because Congress can’t agree on a budget.

“It’s devastating,” said Walton, who served 25 years in the Army before taking a job with the VBA eight years ago. “I’ve received calls from veterans, and I have to let them know I can’t help you until the furlough is over.”

Others locked out today include workers who process appeals made by veterans claiming medical, job-preference or other benefits. These claims already can take more than a year to process, and the shutdown will only lengthen the amount of time veterans have to wait for a decision on their appeals.

The American Federation of Government Employees, a union of 670,000 federal employees nationwide, represents 208,000 workers with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Alma Lee, president of AFGE’s National VA Council, called the furlough a “lose-lose scenario for federal employees and the veterans we serve.”

“Veterans sacrificed greatly to earn their benefits, and we need to be on the job to deliver them,” Lee said. “VBA is already critically understaffed and the lockout is only making it worse. Our veterans deserve better from their elected leaders.”

A handful of AFGE members, supporters from other unions and veterans joined a picket line outside the Whipple Building today. They pinned responsibility on House Republicans, who are using the shutdown as leverage in budget negotiations, hoping President Obama and other Democrats will cave to their demands – like defunding the Affordable Care Act – in order to reopen the VBA and other government agencies.

“We went through this 20 years ago when the government shut down,” said Craig Maehling, a disabled veteran from Minneapolis. “It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now.”

[Click here to demand House Republicans allow a vote on a clean bill to keep the government open.]

AFGE members and supporters from the labor community picket outside the Whipple Federal Building.

AFGE members and supporters from the labor community picket outside the Whipple Federal Building.

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