For St. Paul city workers, bargaining shifted into high gear after Her took office

February 27, 2026 by

Members of AFSCME locals 1842 and 2508 held informational picketing three years ago during the mayor’s State of the City speech.

Clerical and technical workers at the City of St. Paul ratified new three-year contracts earlier this month after just three bargaining sessions, locking in wage increases that will ensure most union members earn $20 per hour by 2028.

Negotiations between the city and two AFSCME locals, which bargain in tandem on behalf of a combined 1,000 workers, progressed much faster than they did three years ago, when dragged on for six months, sparked informational picketing and required 60 hours with a state mediator.

Two key factors, union leaders said, contributed to the quicker resolution. Workers were fired up from the start to support their bargaining team, and St. Paul voters elected a new mayor, Koahly Her, who sought to get her relationship with city workers off on the right foot.

“Some things we can give the city credit for, and some things we can credit ourselves with doing well,” AFSCME Local 1842 President Isaac Mielke said.

In the end, the new contracts will deliver a $1 across-the-board wage increase April 1 and increases of 3% and 3.5% on Jan. 1 of the next two years. Workers also gained a floating holiday, bereavement leave and a deferred-compensation match.

What’s more, those gains came with no concessions, Local 2508 Treasurer Chelsea Beary said.

“What did we give up? Nothing,” she said. “We took back some of our initial proposals, but the city didn’t add anything. There weren’t any real carveouts or concessions, and we’re really proud of that.”

The relationship between AFSCME – the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – and city leadership has warmed significantly since last fall, when administrators surprised city workers and their unions with a list of proposed changes to its civil-service rules that they planned to implement by year’s end.

The proposal, which administrators told union leaders they had been working on for about three years, sparked outrage – and action – among AFSCME members, who had already been organizing in opposition to then-Mayor Melvin Carter’s proposed staffing cuts at rec centers and a library.

Locals 1842 and 2508 began gathering support from city unions for a letter to council members opposing the civil-service changes, which would have doubled the probationary period, shortened the timeline for unions to file grievances and lifted guidelines for management in responding to worker complaints, among other changes.

“I think every city local was extremely concerned, and we all hit the ground running, talking to city council members to say this is not how you make these changes,” said Beary, an executive assistant in the Parks Department. “This is something we’re going to negotiate.”

Meanwhile, about 50 AFSCME members showed up to the city’s Truth in Taxation hearing Nov. 25 to oppose the staffing cuts.

“We wanted to do something proactive for these negotiations,” Mielke, a library associate, said. “It turned out, we got a lot of support from community members at that hearing, even people there to talk about other issues. And we won that budget fight.”

Unions won the fight over civil-service rules, too, and they took that momentum into contract talks with the city.

Labor Relations representatives were dismissive, Mielke and Beary said, of AFSCME’s proposals in two bargaining sessions before Carter left office, but that changed in their first – and only – session after Her’s inauguration in January.

“There was an immediate kind of visual change because the city literally brought us donuts,” Beary said. “We met for nine hours, but it became clear as the day went on that the city (representatives) were there to wrap this up.”

After union members voted to ratify the contracts, several members of the bargaining unit who were not signed up as AFSCME members showed their enthusiasm by joining the union, Mielke said.

“Right after we reached the tentative agreement, [Parks and Recreation] had their staff day, and we signed up 11 new members that day alone,” he said. “It’s really exciting.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

AFSCME members picket Carter’s State of the City speech

April 19, 2023 by

Members of AFSCME locals 1842 and 2508 picketed outside the Oxford Rec Center.

Clerical and technical workers staged informational picketing outside Mayor Melvin Carter’s State of the City address April 18, putting their frustration over a slow-moving round of contract negotiations on full public display.

“We have felt disrespected at the table,” Como Park horticulturist Bryn Fleming said. “Management has shown up late while we’ve been present. It’s disappointing that this is moving so slowly.”

Fleming is a chief steward with Local 1842 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), representing the city’s technical workers. With the clerical union, AFSCME Local 2508, the unions represent about 1,000 workers in talks that began in December.

AFSCME members’ previous, two-year contracts expired New Year’s Eve, and after six mostly fruitless bargaining sessions, the unions will enter mediation with the city May 8.

Union members’ top priorities in bargaining include 6% annual wage increases, affordable health benefits and safety on the job.

AFSCME members staff the city’s offices, libraries, rec centers and other facilities. Many who work in public-facing positions have described an alarming increase in threatening and violent behavior that leaves them feeling unsafe and understaffed, Fleming said.

“Folks in libraries have experienced assault, verbal abuse,” she said. “For folks in rec centers, it’s the same thing. Safety is a big concern, and we’re really trying to have stronger language on that in our contract. We have seen some movement, but we’d really like to have better collaboration.”

The city’s demands, meanwhile, have included elimination of AFSCME members’ promotional rights, which give union members a first shot at interviewing for certain job openings. Union members also have balked at a proposal to eliminate grievances over civil service violations and, instead, shift the process to a commission controlled by the city.

Those are non-starters for AFSCME’s bargaining team, Local 2508 President Jen Guertin said.

“We are the lowest-paid union members in the city,” she said. “For us to be able to promote up to a higher-wage job, that right to take a test and go to the top of a list for an interview, that’s our career path.”

Members of three unions – the Tri-Council – who work in St. Paul’s parks, public works and water departments ratified a new, three-year contract in March that will raise wages by up to 26%. But they took the city to the brink of a strike to get a deal done.

“We’re not there yet,” Guertin said. “We’re going to try mediation, and I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.”

With a mediator involved, Guertin and Fleming said, talks stand a better chance of starting on time and ending when they stop being productive, if nothing else.

“We would set the meeting to start at 5 p.m., and management wouldn’t come into the meeting until 5:30 or 5:45 – on the regular,” Guertin said. “Then we would pass an offer across the table, and they’d leave us sitting there for six or seven hours before coming back to say we can’t get anything done. What’s the point?”

By picketing the State of the City, union members hoped to put Carter on notice that they’re holding him accountable for the city’s lack of urgency.

“When we say things like we’re scared to go to work or we feel unsafe, we’d like to see somebody do something about that,” Fleming said. “And when we say we can’t pay our bills, we’d like to see somebody pay attention to that.

“I would love to feel like the mayor actually respects the work that we do and respects how difficult it can be.”

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

For 20 years, Lynne Larkin-Wright helped union members get through the ‘bumps on the road’

July 28, 2020 by

Lynne Larkin-Wright receives a letter of appreciation from U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum for her four decades of service to the community. McCollum’s district director, Josh Straka, presented the letter on her behalf.

Lynne Larkin-Wright had been in the workforce five years when her father, George, a member and officer of Laborers Local 132, confronted her with a question: “Why would you work anything other than union?”

Soon thereafter, Larkin-Wright never did. She took a job with the City of St. Paul, where she would remain for 20 years as a member of Local 2508 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Her father was onto something.

“Just knowing how much better your life can be and how much more stable your life can be, rather than being at the whim of someone else,” Larkin-Wright said. “It makes such a difference.”

But a union card isn’t a shield against economic hardship. Layoffs, downturns, work stoppages and unexpected medical expenses are just some of the life events that can throw union members’ lives into turmoil.

When union members in the East Metro have found themselves in economic crisis over the last 20 years, they’ve had a friend in Larkin-Wright, who retired July 2 from her position as an AFL-CIO Community Services liaison with the St. Paul Labor Studies and Resource Center. The LSRC is the nonprofit arm of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, and a longstanding partner organization of Greater Twin Cities United Way.

Larkin-Wright reflected on that partnership – and the 40 years she’s spent in the local labor movement – in this interview, published in the August 2020 issue of The Union Advocate.

UA: How did you go from payroll clerk at the city to AFL-CIO Community Services liaison?

LLW: At some point the city and my union loaned me to the United Way to help raise money at campaign time. I was also on the board of United Way of St. Paul as a labor representative, where I worked in fund-distribution with local nonprofits. I also got involved on the Community Services Committee as a delegate to the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly, and went through their union counselor training, learning about resources available in the community.

UA: Tell me about your dad’s influence on your career path.

LLW: When we were kids, we were the first on the block to buy a color TV. I have a friend who reminds me of it to this day! We had good health insurance and dental insurance. My mother, she lived 20 years longer than my dad, but she never had to worry about paying for surgery or medication or dialysis. All the work Dad did maintaining good contracts for members helped him as well.

UA: You remained a dues-paying member of AFSCME Local 2508 even after leaving the city. What has it meant to be part of that union?

LLW: Getting involved in my local was one of the best things I ever did. That and being loaned to the United Way, those are the two best things that ever happened to me. After getting up and public speaking at United Way meetings, when I went back to my local, I wouldn’t say no to getting up and saying something in front of the City Council. I’m sure for the city it was like, “Look what we’ve created!”

But for me it was a huge shift. I remember one of the first things (former RLF President) Shar Knutson had me do in this job was go in front of the City Council and request a Workers Memorial Day proclamation. I remember thinking, “I don’t know if I need to do that.” But I marched up there and did it. And it opened up a path to a lot of things I didn’t know I could do.

Lynne Larkin-Wright’s appointment to the United Way board made news in the the Feb. 21, 1994, issue of The Union Advocate.

UA: What else surprised you about the job?

LLW: I remember in my interview there were like 13 people at the table. Shar always wanted to have other people’s input, and I think because we were friends, she also wanted to make sure there wasn’t any bias, that I had all the tools.

But the work we were doing 20 years ago is different than the work we’re doing now. And it will change again. I think that’s the beauty of what the United Way does. They change based on the needs of the community. Every United Way is different because every community is different. That means LSRC’s program is going to change, and we have to.

UA: What’s changed in 20 years?

LLW: People used to come in with one thing that was going on. You helped them with that, and they were on their way. Now the issues are multiple. I think health care is a big piece of that. Retirement security is a big piece of that.

UA: What’s the one resource you wish more people knew about?

LLW: We’ve been talking about United Way 211 first call for help for 40 years! People still don’t know it’s out there. But also our program, for union members to know that it’s a resource that’s there, and that Community Services liaisons are there to help? You can only say those things so many times.

Union folks aren’t used to asking for help. They’re used to being the folks out there helping. I’ve seen that recently with unemployment. People are proud and want to take care of themselves, but we all experience bumps on the road of life. If there’s help out there to make that path a little less bumpy, why not take it?

UA: What’s kept you doing this work? What’s been frustrating?

LLW: I really liked reducing stress for folks, even if it’s temporary. That has been so rewarding. I’ve been very fortunate to do this work.

The frustrating part? You can encourage people to help themselves, but sometimes they don’t. All you can do is keep encouraging people in the right direction.

UA: You’ve built so many relationships in this movement. What are some that have meant the most?

LLW: I’ve been blessed to work with great people, and not everybody can say that. I’ve still got friends I worked with 40 years ago!

I had been mentored by several people and didn’t even realize it was happening. Wayne Wittman (former Community Services Committee chair and Machinists union delegate) was a big one, and so were Shar and Robin Madsen from AFSCME. We did a lot of fun things, and we got a lot of good stuff done. Getting up at 8 a.m. on a Saturday and pounding lawn signs with other unions, or having picnics together – knowing we were all in the same boat, working together.

Because if employers find out they can divide you? Well, good luck.

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