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: , , , , ,

Wilfs’ company turned deaf ear to warnings of wage theft at Viking Lakes development

May 10, 2022 by

Abel Susteito speaks at a Capitol press conference about his experience with wage theft on the Viking Lakes apartment project in Eagan.

Tradespeople who worked on the Viking Lakes luxury apartments in Eagan went public last week with accusations of wage theft on the project, owned and developed by the same family that owns the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.

Worker advocacy groups, including the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters (NCSRCC), pinned responsibility for the alleged labor abuses on the Wilfs, whose company, MV Ventures, ignored the groups’ repeated warnings that subcontractors awarded work on the project had a track record of labor violations and dishonesty.

“MV Ventures is a Wilf-family company. MV Ventures develops the project, hires the subcontractors and has control of the project from start to finish,” Carpenters General Council Burt Johnson said. “They are responsible.”

The union said it has heard from more than 40 workers on the Viking Lakes project who said they were not paid what they were owed, and two workers at a Capitol press conference May 5 confirmed reporting the wage theft to Minnesota’s Department of Labor and Industry.

But any civil or criminal penalties resulting from an investigation are likely to fall on the subcontractors, prompting calls from community leaders for the Wilfs and MV Ventures to do the right thing now.

Veronica Mendez Moore, co-director of the Twin Cities-based worker center CTUL, said MV Ventures should meet with unions to resolve the allegations stemming from Viking Lakes, and sign a pledge with the Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council requiring all contractors on its developments to uphold basic labor standards.

Javier Mendez Velasco speaks to reporters about his experience installing siding at the Viking Lakes apartments.

Mendez Moore also noted the Wilfs benefited from nearly half a billion dollars in public subsidies to build the Vikings’ new stadium in Minneapolis.

“This is a family that needs to be held to a higher standard,” she said. “They need to partner with the community to better ensure standards for all of the people in our city.”

‘Constantly tired’

Despite working for different subcontractors, Javier Mendez Velasco and Abel Susteito described similar labor standards on the 261-unit, luxury apartment project at Viking Lakes. Both said they were paid wages lower than what they were initially promised, with no overtime or holiday pay and no vacation or health insurance benefits.

That was a standard arrangement, Mendez Velasco said, at subcontractors like Advantage Construction and Property Maintenance and Construction (PMC), which employed him to do siding work on the Wilf family’s Eagan development site. In over three years with Advantage and PMC, Mendez Velasco said he never received overtime pay, despite working six or seven days per week, sometimes from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“We were constantly tired, but our boss wasn’t understanding,” Mendez Velasco said through a Spanish-language interpreter. “He would never help us out.”

Susteito hung drywall at Viking Lakes from November 2020 to August 2021 as an employee of Absolute Drywall, a company local unions have been calling out for several years, pointing to past citations for child labor, misclassification of workers and failure to pay overtime. The state Labor Department also found that Absolute Drywall submitted false and misleading claims in response to an investigation.

“I want to ask the Department of Labor to keep fighting for our rights, and for better pay for us,” Susteito said at the press conference.

Carpenters union official Adam Duininck says he and others suggested ways the Wilfs’ company could prevent wage theft on the Viking Lakes project. “Our suggestions just were not taken seriously,” he said.

Profit before public interest

Advocates for construction workers say exploitation is baked into the industry’s business model, with layers of contractors, subcontractors and labor brokers that insulate developers like the Wilfs from responsibility for working conditions and standards on their projects.

Immigrant workers are particularly vulnerable.

“We came here to work, and we have our own dreams. But we were taken advantage of,” Mendez Velasco said. “As immigrant workers we are taken advantage of for our hard work, for our dedication, but also because we don’t have the knowledge and the available resources.”

Union representatives warned the Wilfs’ development company, MV Ventures, about their subcontractors’ checkered background “ad nauseam,” according to Adam Duininck, NCSRCC’s director of government affairs. He said the union also urged the developer to be proactive in preventing wage theft.

“We suggested a number of ways to get ahead of wage theft, including jobsite monitoring and working with outside groups to monitor payroll,” Duininck said. “Our suggestions just were not taken seriously.”

As a result, workers like Susteito, Mendez Velasco and dozens of others are still waiting to be made whole for their work building luxury apartments that are now renting at prices between $1,600 and $2,245 per month.

“These workers take great risk when they come forward and talk to the public about what’s going on,” Johnson said. “We need to believe them.”

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

After security contractor reneges, officers at Eagan postal facility strike

September 12, 2016 by
Striking Command security officers (L to R) Laurie Mattson-Collier, Isabel Alvarado and Vicky Berg walk the picket line in Eagan.

Striking Command security officers (L to R) Laurie Mattson-Collier, Isabel Alvarado and Vicky Berg walk the picket line in Eagan.

 

Laurie Mattson-Collier left a meeting with Command Security Corporation managers last month relieved they had reached a compromise to stave off severe pay cuts for her unit of 13 security officers at a postal facility in Eagan.

Less than a week later, Command told Mattson-Collier it was backing out of the verbal agreement, citing opposition from “stakeholders” in the corporation.

“I was just devastated,” Mattson-Collier said. “I started cussing. I really try not to cuss, but I was so upset.”

The workers, members of Local 26 of the Service Employees International Union, held a one-day strike today, protesting what they called an “act of bad faith” by Command.

After taking over the security contract for the U.S. Office of the Inspector General’s facilities in June, Command announced changes to a longstanding practice, upheld by other security contractors, of compensating workers who forego fringe benefits like health insurance.

Laurie Mattson-Collier and her husband were forced to move in with their daughter after Command gutted her paycheck.

Laurie Mattson-Collier and her husband were forced to move in with their daughter after Command gutted her paycheck.

The change meant a pay cut equivalent to $4.27 per hour for workers like Mattson-Collier and Vicky Berg, who gets her health insurance via Medicare. Some workers have quit, she said, and others have been forced to take second jobs.

“I’ve heard stories about some of my co-workers even having to put insurance premiums on their credit cards,” Berg said. “This is how they treat experienced, dedicated employees who are the first line of security for such a vital building?”

Mattson-Collier, who has worked security at the Eagan facility for 13 years, said she and her husband, who is disabled, had no choice after he paychecks plummeted in value but to move in with their daughter.

“This is a nightmare,” she said. “We do important work, and it is hard to believe that we are being treated this way.”

Command cited payroll taxes as its motive for looking to eliminate the additional compensation. Workers were hopeful the company would agree to continue the practice if they covered the taxes themselves.

The two sides currently have no additional bargaining sessions scheduled. Workers warned that without a deal upholding fair compensation levels, more longstanding officers are likely to find other work, undermining the security of the Office of the Inspector General.

Members of Local 7019 of the American Postal Workers Union, who work inside the Eagan facility, picketed alongside security officers, showing their support for the strike.

“I don’t trust Command any more,” Mattson-Collier said. “For them, I think it’s all about the dollar.”

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

Labor 2012 Endorsed: Eagan deserves better than Doug Wardlow

October 31, 2012 by

Laurie Halverson is the labor-endorsed candidate in House District 51B.

Laurie Halverson is seeking to unseat Republican Rep. Doug Wardlow in House District 51B (map). For union members in the district, the two candidates should need no further introduction.

In his first term at the Capitol, Wardlow took up anti-worker Right to Work legislation as his personal pet cause, pushing a constitutional amendment on the measure last year even after leaders in his own party had moved on to other business.

It helped earn Wardlow a reputation as his party’s ideological warrior – one Halverson believes is out of step with the community of Eagan that he represents.

“He has taken extreme party-line positions, even extreme for his own party,” Halverson said. “That kind of extremism doesn’t fit our community. Eagan isn’t being represented as we deserve to be.”

A stay-at-home mother, Halverson, whose husband is a member of the Air Line Pilots Association, has taken up various civic causes in Eagan, including service on the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Eagan Foundation, which supports educational opportunities for area students.

She believes her neighbors are less interested in ideology and more concerned about their schools, which she lists as her top priority.

“Borrowing from our schools has had a real impact on students in our community and their families, who pay more and more out of pocket. The school district has had to borrow money for the first time in its history, so instead of paying money into schools, taxpayers are paying interest.

“The people of Eagan are so civically engaged. They’re really involved in this community, and they’re tired of people taking these hard-line positions. They want to see people get the job done.”

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

Labor 2012 Endorsed: Carlson, Masin, Morgan eye return to Legislature

October 29, 2012 by

Jim Carlson (top-left), Sandy Masin and Will Morgan are labor-endorsed candidates seeking to return to legislative seats they lost in 2010.

Jim Carlson, Sandy Masin and Will Morgan are hoping voters who bounced them from office two years ago will show buyer’s remorse in 2012.

All three DFLers represented suburban areas south of St. Paul, including Burnsville, Eagan and Lakeville, from 2007 to 2010, but they were swept out of office by a wave of support for “tea party” Republicans two years ago.

What have Republicans accomplished since taking control of the Legislature? One state government shutdown, two divisive constitutional amendments and a $2.4 billion I.O.U. to public school districts.

“Instead of focusing on creating jobs and improving the economy like they promised, they got sidetracked by irrelevant issues, gridlock and shutting down the government,” said Morgan, a high school physics teacher from Burnsville running for House District 56B (map). “None of that helped improve the lives of working Minnesotans.”

Morgan, Carlson and Masin believe voters want a Legislature that will focus on moving Minnesota forward with real solutions – not scoring political points or advancing an extremist ideology.

Masin, a longtime parks advocate and community volunteer in Eagan, says voters in her House District 51A (map) deserve representatives who will act like adults. “We know some of the Republicans were just not willing to compromise at all to do the work of the state,” she said. “That’s the reason for the state shutdown.”

Carlson, a retired mechanical engineer from Eagan, is running against Sen. Ted Daley in District 51 (map). Daley was among the most vocal supporters of so-called Right to Work legislation, a direct attack on workers, collective bargaining rights and the middle class.

Carlson says Daley is taking marching orders from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, the corporate-backed lobbying group behind right-wing model legislation introduced in statehouses across the country, much of it aimed at stripping protections for middle class workers and their families. “If you go to China or to India, you’ll see what (ALEC) wants: to be able to have the lowest labor rates avail to them.”

Rather than compete in a race to the bottom, Minnesota should be developing an economy prepared to compete for the best jobs of the future – and that means making investments in K-12 and post-secondary education, keeping our infrastructure sound and preserving our high quality of life.

Masin agrees: “If we want to maintain our businesses and attract businesses, they need to know we have a workforce that is well educated.”

Morgan, meanwhile, isn’t shy about telling union members what’s at stake in this election. If Republicans maintain control of the Legislature, he predicts Minnesota will have a Right to Work constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2014 – legislation that would “turn Minnesota into a cold Mississippi.”

“We need to make sure our economic future is sound to bring prosperity to all,” Morgan added. “It starts with a strong middle class, and that starts with good schools and making sure working folks have a voice regarding their working conditions, wages and benefits.”

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Dakota County legislators dodge community meeting on school funding

May 16, 2012 by

Working America member Mike Adair addresses a community meeting on school funding in Burnsville.

A group of Dakota County residents convened a community meeting in Burnsville May 12, hoping to give people an opportunity to ask their legislators questions about things like school funding and property taxes.

Unfortunately, not one of the area’s legislators acted on the invitation to attend, leaving the roomful of concerned parents, school district employees and other community members with more questions than answers.

“Why are our schools suffering? Why are property taxes on the middle class skyrocketing while our schools are giving kids less and less each year?” asked Mike Adair, an Eagan resident and father of four students in the Eagan school district.

“It’s not the district’s fault that they are squeezed dry every year. This mess comes directly from the state, and our representatives need to be held accountable for making choices that hurt our kids and their schools.”

The meeting underscores the task at hand for Minnesota’s union members and their community allies in this election year. The 2011-12 legislative sessions produced unprecedented attacks on workers from newly elected Republican majorities in the House and Senate, including a so-called “Right to Work” constitutional amendment.

Electing pro-worker majorities to the Legislature this November will require unions, through their Labor 2012 campaign, to make gains in places like Burnsville and Eagan, communities that have suffered from the state’s failure to fund local schools and public services adequately.

Residents like Adair, a member of the AFL-CIO community group Working America, are ready to work for candidates committed to raising revenue fairly to balance the budget in 2013.

“This is not the Minnesota I envisioned my kids growing up in,” said Adair. “Simply putting band-aids on the wounds every school year is not going to help. We need to think long-term.”

Metro-area unions will kick off in the Labor 2012 campaign with a rally May 17 in Minneapolis, where union leaders and volunteers plan to “celebrate our victories – and talk about what’s next, so these attacks don’t come back in 2013.”

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