Appeals court sides with home care workers’ union – again

January 18, 2018 by

Minnesota PCAs who worked Monday – on MLK Day – received holiday pay for the first time, thanks to a new provision in their union contract with the state.

A day later, home care workers received more good news. The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled against a group seeking to roll back holiday pay and other gains workers and their clients have made through collective bargaining by decertifying their union.

Corey Van Denburgh, a home care worker from Anoka, said he was relieved the court decision would preserve advances made since workers organized in 2014.

“We’ve won sick pay for the first time, raised the wage floor by $3 per hour, won free access to trainings, won over $150,000 in back-pay awards for workers who were underpaid, built an online matching registry to help home clients find the workers they need and established time-and-a-half pay for holidays, among other gains,” Van Denburgh said. “Through these accomplishments, we are finally beginning to address the severe care crisis in our state, which has only been getting worse for years because of the low pay and lack of benefits provided for this important work.”

It was the latest legal setback for MNPCA, an anti-union group that petitioned the state Bureau of Mediation Services in December 2016 for a decertification election. But MNPCA fell far short of collecting signatures from 30 percent of home care workers represented by the union – the threshold necessary to trigger a vote, according to state law.

When the BMS rejected its decertification petition, MNPCA sued. In Tuesday’s ruling, a panel of three Appeals Court judges upheld the BMS’s decision.

Still, it’s unlikely to be the last legal Hail Mary for the well-funded MNPCA, which has ties to right-wing legal funds and shadowy think tanks like the Center of the American Experiment. MNPCA has been pestering home care workers’ union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, with lawsuits since before workers voted to organize.

Van Denburgh, a vice president of his union, called MNPCA’s efforts a “tragic misuse of time and energy.”

“As home care workers and people who receive home care services, we resolved to never let these extremist attacks stop us from making progress for the people of Minnesota, nearly every one of which will need home care services at some point in our lives,” he said.

“Whether Democrat or Republican, we all have been or will be impacted by the shortage of caregivers because of low pay and lack of benefits, so I hope we can put these divisive court cases and anti-union attack campaigns behind us. Let’s come together to make sure every Minnesotan can get safe, quality care and stay in their home with their loved ones.”

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Ruling deals blow to faculty union drive at U’s Twin Cities campus

September 6, 2017 by

A Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling issued yesterday dealt a setback to faculty members organizing a union at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, who are now weighing an appeal to the state’s Supreme Court.

The ruling overturned a decision by the Bureau of Mediation Services, which oversees public employee labor disputes in Minnesota, to allow contingent and tenure-track faculty members to form a united front in bargaining with the U of M, should they vote to form a union.

The faculty union, Minnesota Academics United, released a statement from its steering committee in response to the decision:

“We are disappointed that the Court of Appeals overruled the Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS). We believe that the Commissioner’s decision was the more accurate assessment of faculty labor on our campus, a decision reached based on a thorough and thoughtful process including meetings of the parties, lengthy hearings, and extensive legal arguments. We stand firm in our belief that contingent faculty and tenure-track faculty necessarily share a community of interest.

“The university administration’s position is driven by backwards priorities that value administrative prerogatives over intellectual excellence and student learning. The University’s position is a deliberate misinterpretation of what campus faculty do, explicitly intended to divide us in order to limit our power to protect and improve our working conditions, which are also our students’ learning conditions.

“Further, it relies on a fundamental disavowal of the value of our contingent colleagues’ teaching, research, and service to our campus community. This approach to university education is anachronistic and unacceptable. In spite of this unfavorable outcome in the Court of Appeals, we will continue to advocate for our students and colleagues through a variety of channels including a possible appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court.”

Faculty members at the U of M filed their petition for a union election in January 2016.

Minnesota Academics United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, has 30 days to appeal the Court of Appeals ruling.

 

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Union sees growth potential in state’s medical cannabis industry

February 20, 2015 by

ufcw1189merge2smallWorkers at Minnesota Medical Solutions, one of two firms authorized by state regulators to manufacture and dispense medical cannabis, announced today they have unionized and ratified their first contract, all in the last week.

The state’s Bureau of Mediation Services on Tuesday authorized Local 1189 of the United Food and Commercial Workers – a St. Paul- and Duluth-based union representing workers in retail, health care and manufacturing – as the representative of Minnesota Medical Solutions’ eligible full- and part-time workers.

The union announced workers’ vote to ratify their new contract in a press release today.

The Minnesota Department of Health will begin enrolling patients with qualified medical conditions – outlined in legislation passed last year – into the medical cannabis registry program this spring. Registered patients may be able to purchase medical cannabis at eight distribution facilities across the state as early as July.

Bernie Hesse, Local 1189’s director of special projects, sees potential for growth for the medical cannabis industry in Minnesota. The UFCW, which represents thousands of medical cannabis workers in seven states and the District of Columbia, projects the industry will create one job for every 10 patients.

The Minnesota Medical Solutions bargaining unit “is a handful of workers to start,” Hesse said. “But it will grow.”

Meanwhile, Hesse said, Local 1189’s efforts to organize workers at the other licensed cannabis producer, Cottage Grove-based LeafLine Labs, continue.

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