Lawmakers take up educators’ call for new insurance pool

March 24, 2026 by

Rep. Liz Reyer of Eagan joins members of Education Minnesota at a Capitol press conference about the Educator Group Insurance Program.

House and Senate authors of a statewide health insurance pool for school employees, one of Education Minnesota’s top priorities this session, outlined their legislation’s path forward last week.

The statewide educators’ union held a day of action at the Capitol March 18 to drum up support for the idea among lawmakers. During a press conference, Rep. Liz Reyer (D-Eagan) and Sen. Mary Kunesh (D-New Brighton) said they hoped to pass bills this session that would survey school districts about the insurance coverage they provide.

The data is necessary, Kunesh said, to calculate costs of the full proposal, known as the Educator Group Insurance Program (EGIP). Kunesh and Reyer said they are aiming for EGIP’s passage in 2027.

“This session, the goal is to vet concepts through committees,” Kunesh said during a press conference with educators at the Capitol on March 18.

Modeled after an existing program that covers State of Minnesota employees and after programs in other states, EGIP is Education Minnesota’s preferred approach to stabilizing school districts’ skyrocketing health insurance costs.

The issue has increasingly become a stumbling block for local unions in contract negotiations, as educators and other school employees are repeatedly forced to choose between absorbing big premium hikes or accepting lower wage increases.

Over 150 union members joined the day of action at the Capitol, and many carried signs bearing the exact amount by which their district’s health insurance costs have increased in recent years – 30% in Mankato, 34% in Lyle, 54% in New Ulm.

By consolidating the purchasing power of every school district into a statewide risk pool, EGIP would cut down on brokerage fees and level the playing field in negotiations with large insurers like UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross MN, advocates say.

“Minnesota’s school districts are small buyers in a market that rewards large ones,” Education Minnesota President Monica Byron said. “Every year, hundreds of school districts negotiate alone against a multi-billion-dollar insurance industry that knows exactly how much leverage it has. Educators pay for that power imbalance in higher premiums, worse coverage and impossible choices.”

Because the risk pool in most school districts is relatively small, they often see a dramatic spike in coverage costs after an employee experiences a health crisis, Byron added. “Every school district in Minnesota is just one sick employee away from a crisis that it cannot manage.”

A high-deductible insurance plan left Glencoe-Silver Lake science teacher Amanda Kottke’s family with steep medical bills after her son’s hospitalization.

That’s what happened to Amanda Kottke, a science teacher in the Glencoe-Silver Lake district. Her son spent 10 “long, terrifying days” at Children’s Hospital last year receiving treatment for complications from a ruptured appendix.

Kottke, who has a high-deductible plan through her employer, acknowledged that concerns about out-of-pocket costs factored into her family’s initial decision to hold off on a $250 trip to the urgent care. But the hospital stay left Kottke with a much larger bill – and feelings of “guilt and trauma” that she now can’t afford to address in therapy.

“We were asked to pay our $10,000 deductible up front, and we couldn’t,” Kottke said. “They then suggested $900 a month until the bill was paid off, and we couldn’t do that either.”

Now her district, which already has seen insurance costs increase 165% over the last six years, is seeing bids for insurance plans next year come in 30% to 50% higher, she said.

The rising cost of their health insurance comes with public costs beyond the strain it creates on districts’ budgets. (The proposal would include a “hold harmless” provision to ensure districts’ costs don’t increase with EGIP.)

Education Minnesota reports that high insurance costs are a leading factor in driving licensed educators away from the profession. Lower-paid school employees, meanwhile, often forego the district’s insurance and look to public programs for coverage.

Kunesh and Reyer, EGIP’s authors in the legislature, said most lawmakers agree that public schools’ rising insurance costs are an urgent problem. Reyer had a message for those who are still skeptical EGIP is the solution.

“They have not offered a systemic solution, and that’s what we need,” she said. “Every day without a solution is another educator choosing between a paycheck and a family’s health care. Minnesota can do better than that.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

MN unions to employers: Keep ICE out of our workplaces

February 4, 2026 by

Members of several health care unions gather outside HCMC for a “unity break” to decry ICE’s presence in their facilities.

As federal immigration raids continue in the Twin Cities, several local unions are stepping up to demand their employers protect both workers and the people they serve.

From health care workers and letter carriers to transit workers and educators, the message has been clear: keep ICE out of our workplaces.

Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers union, today joined two school districts in a lawsuit seeking to block ICE and Border Protection agents from conducting operations on or near public schools, arguing that recent federal actions have disrupted, education, endangered students and driven families away from classrooms.

“Students can’t learn, and educators can’t teach, when there are armed, masked federal agents stationed within view of classroom windows, sometimes for days on end,” Education Minnesota President Monica Byron said. “ICE and Border Patrol need to stay away from our schools so students can go there safely each day to learn without fear, and so that our members can focus on teaching instead of constantly reacting to the shocking and unconstitutional actions of federal agents.”

At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, hospitality workers, support staff and drivers with Uber and Lyft saw an escalation of immigration activity in early January.

At a press conference with union and faith leaders, airport workers described being stopped by federal agents on their way to work – or even on the job – and asked for documentation that they are in the country legally.

Uber Driver Hamsa Hussein said federal agents at the airport were clearly stopping drivers based on their appearance.

Airport workers, Uber and Lyft drivers and clergy held a press conference at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport after several union members were detained at the facility last month.

“This is not how things are supposed to be working,” he said. “It’s about intimidation, not safety. No one should be treated like a suspect for showing up to work.”

UNITE HERE Local 17, which represents over 250 food-service workers at the airport, reported that over a dozen of its members had been detained last month – on both sides of MSP’s security checkpoints. Geof Paquette, an internal organizer with Local 17, said anyone working behind the checkpoint must pass a rigorous federal background check.

“All of these workers who were kidnapped had the proper authorization to be working in an airport behind security,” he said. “They’re doing it the right way. They’re doing it the legal way – and they’re still targeted.”

Many hospitality workers, as a result, are simply staying home, Paquette added. He noted that it’s also happening at the airport and in restaurants and hotels, many occupied by ICE agents themselves.

Local 17 is helping the families of members who have been detained track and support their loved ones. The union also is raising funds – over $100,000 to date – to support workers and their families with food, rent and other costs.

Union members working in local hospitals, meanwhile, reported seeing federal agents lurking near their campuses or waiting outside patients’ rooms – with some patients even being shackled to their hospital beds.

Dr. Zach Perez, a first-year resident at Hennepin County Medical Center and a member of the SEIU-affiliated Committee of Interns and Residents, said an alarming number of patients are skipping appointments, not picking up medications and forgoing treatment.

“This is an extremely preventable public health crisis, and it’s created by ICE,” Perez said during a unity break with members of AFSCME, the Minnesota Nurses Association and the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild outside HCMC on Jan. 23.

Perez added a message for business leaders, hospital executives and elected officials: “Work together to rid our community of this disease.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Educators, families, students unite behind St. Paul levy campaign

October 24, 2025 by

Victor Xiong, a student at Central Senior High, speaks to volunteers at the Yes for SPPS campaign’s kickoff doorknock.

Voters will decide the fate of a $37.2 million levy request from the St. Paul Public Schools this fall, and the stakes are too high – for students, families and the community – to tune out during this quiet election year.

That’s the message educators, students and school board members delivered during a rally to kick off the Vote Yes for SPPS campaign last month. And volunteers have been delivering it to voters across the district, door by door, in the weeks since then.

“We know that our public schools are the heart of our democracy and our community,” St. Paul Federation of Educators President Leah VanDassor said. “This is the work we need to do, and we’re all in it together.”

The levy referendum is a fork in the road for SPPS. District leaders covered most of a $51.1 million budget shortfall this school year by pulling about $35 million from reserves, but SPPS faces another projected shortfall in 2026-27.

The district is seeking voter approval to increase its operating levy by $1,073 per student for the next 10 years. If it passes, the levy would position SPPS to stabilize its budget, retain and attract quality educators and preserve programming inside and outside the classroom, district leaders say.

But if it fails, the district will need to cut programming and services by $37.2 million before school starts next fall.

Carlo Franco, a member of the district’s Board of Education, said many programs that give students opportunities to “find their passion” – arts, languages, cultural enrichment, athletics and after-school opportunities – will not survive without the new operating levy.

“We have done our best to keep cuts away from the classroom as best we can,” Franco told volunteers at the kickoff rally Sept. 20. “Without an additional $37 million, the reality is we’re going to be looking at some of those programs that are the motivators, the college and career readiness, that we need to make sure our students thrive. That is what’s on the ballot right now.”

Horace Mann science specialist Sarah Bosch, a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, offers support for the $37.2 million operating levy request during a “Vote Yes for SPPS” kickoff event.

Cuts leave students ‘heartbroken’

Educators, students and families in the district – and across Minnesota – have dealt with budget cuts before, of course.

Victor Xiong, a Central High School student, remembered learning that his teacher in freshman world history class had lost her job in a round of budget cuts. “I was basically heartbroken,” he said during the rally.

“We can’t cut any more without harming students,” added Sarah Bosch, a science teacher at Horace Mann Elementary, where students lost a reading support specialist this school year.

Staring down a ‘triple financial threat’

Inflation has steadily chipped away at the buying power of school districts like SPPS over the last two decades. SPPS estimates it would have an extra $50 million this school year if state-aid increases had matched inflation rates.

An influx of federal funds during the COVID-19 pandemic helped SPPS cover its budget shortfalls temporarily. Not only have those funding streams dried up, but in July the Trump administration threatened to rescind nearly $7 billion in support for public school districts nationwide, before backing away from the plan in August.

Lagging state aid, loss of COVID relief and federal uncertainty represent a “triple financial threat” to school districts, according to Teresa Mozur, campaign manager for the Vote Yes committee and a SPPS parent.

“Now more than ever, with support eroding at the federal level, we need to protect the things that make Saint Paul Public Schools strong,” Mozur said. “Local funding is the only way we can prevent devastating cuts that will have a direct impact on families, our community and our local economy.”

Labor backs school levies across East Metro

St. Paul isn’t the only school district asking local voters for more funding.

In the Nov. 4 election, school districts in Minnesota have authorized 44 ballot questions seeking additional operating revenue. Another 80 ballot questions ask voters to approve money for construction, renovations, technology and other capital projects.

The St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, which brings together over 100 affiliated local unions with over 50,000 members, has endorsed the SPPS levy referendum, as well as levy requests in the following east-metro districts:

Find a full list of labor endorsements in the Nov. 4 election at stpaulunions.org.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

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

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

Unions warn Trump-aligned ‘Project 2025’ puts target on workers’ rights

October 2, 2024 by

Bart Andersen, executive director of AFSCME Council 5, speaks during a rally against Project 2025.

Project 2025, the 920-page playbook for former President Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House, spells disaster for union members, Minnesota labor leaders and activists warned yesterday.

“Project 2025 is about one thing; it’s about dismantling the rights we’ve fought for, taking away our power and leaving us vulnerable,” AFSCME Council 65 Executive Director Shannon Douvier said during a rally outside the Capitol in St. Paul. “We cannot afford to let this happen.”

Written by a team of former Trump administration officials and funded by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 provides a sprawling but detailed blueprint for how a second Trump presidency would wield power.

Unions, labor standards and collective bargaining would be targets of that power, according to an analysis of the document by the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation.

The AFL-CIO highlighted several objectives that would undercut workers’ power at the bargaining table and stifle their voice in the workplace, including a complete ban on public employee unions like AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), Education Minnesota and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which organized the rally in St. Paul.

“The tools we use to keep our workplaces safe, our families healthy, our standard of living and … the equipment we need to get home at night to our families safe and sound are all at risk,” AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Bart Andersen said. “Our unions and our contracts bring us stability and peace of mind, and right now it’s all on the chopping block with Project 2025.”

The document calls on the Trump administration to defund federal services, eliminate agencies like the Department of Education and scrap civil service rules so that federal workers could be more easily replaced with MAGA loyalists.

Mechell Snider, a member of AFGE Local 899 who works as a TSA agent at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, said voters need to “stop Project 2025 in its tracks” to “protect an apolitical federal workforce” that is loyal to the Constitution, not to Trump.

“We need a federal workforce that has the right to unionize, to bargain in good faith and to show up to do a job safely, for the sole benefit of the American people,” Snider added.

Project 2025 takes aim at private-sector workers’ rights, too, calling for a ban on union organizing by card check, which speeds up organizing drives by allowing employers to recognize majority support for a union voluntarily, without a National Labor Relations Board election.

Project 2025 also supports allowing employers to push decertification campaigns at any time, making it easier to wiggle out of their obligations to workers in the middle of a contract.

Project 2025 also takes aim at union workers’ wages – Building Trades workers, in particular. It calls for a repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires construction companies to pay prevailing wages to workers on federally funded projects.

Additionally, the document calls on federal agencies to stop bargaining project labor agreements – so-called “PLAs,” which set the terms and conditions of employment for construction projects before bidding begins – with unions. That would open the federal bidding process to low-wage, low-road contractors.

Other provisions in Project 2025 would be bad for union and non-union workers alike, from eliminating overtime protections to allowing states to set their own minimum wage below the federal rate. Child labor laws, unemployment insurance programs, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration – Trump’s allies aim to weaken them all, according to Project 2025.

Education Minnesota Vice President Monica Byron, an elementary-school teacher, said Project 2025 is a game plan for making it harder for workers to get ahead and stacking the deck in favor of Wall Street and wealthy CEOs.

“We have a choice to make in this election,” Byron said. “We can support the freedom to come together in union and bargain for better lives and better schools, or we can choose the MAGA agenda of Project 2025 that would give greedy corporations even more control over our lives and decimate unions and public education.”

Learn more about Project 2025’s impact on workers at betterinaunion.org.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

2023 Teacher of the Year reflects on ‘life-changing event’

April 23, 2024 by

The 2024 Minnesota Teacher of the Year will be named at a ceremony in St. Paul on May 5, and Harding High School math teacher Michael Houston, the 2023 award winner, will be the one to make the big announcement.

The ceremony will mark the end of a momentous year for Houston, a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators who also works as adjunct professor at Concordia, teaching math classes to prospective elementary teachers. Houston discussed his experience – and how he tried to use the platform – in this Union Advocate interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

UA: What’s been your role in the process of naming a new teacher of the year, beyond making the announcement?

MH: As the incumbent, I am a part of the interview panel… Once they have all the applicants, we kind of go through and rate our top 40 or 50 applicants, and from there pull out a number of semifinalists. People who are part of the panel then do a two- or three-minute interview with them, and we rank the top 10 to come up with the finalists. On the Saturday of Teacher Appreciation Week, the finalists come in and do an interview with the panel for a half hour. And on Sunday during the ceremony, I’ll give a speech, and then name the 2024 Teacher of the Year.

UA: That sounds like a lot of interaction with your peers. What has struck you during those conversations?

MH: It’s only affirmed all the thoughts I’ve had that we have passionate educators in this state who want what’s best for their students. And along the way I’ve met even more amazing and inspiring future educators while visiting colleges and high schools where students are enrolled in career pathway courses. I think we’re in good hands.

UA: What’s your message to aspiring educators?

MH: In my teaching I’m pretty straightforward and upfront. I keep it real, and I try to do that when I’m talking to prospective educators as well. I generally share my own personal educational journey because that may resonate with many of the audiences. I talk about the tenets of teaching: opportunity, being creative with your curriculum and, most important, legacy.

UA: What was the experience like as a finalist?

MH: Last year was my second time being a finalist; I was a finalist in 2017 as well. But the first time was a whirlwind. In that short weekend you really build a bond with those finalists; you quickly learn a lot of the commonalities that you see among great educators. You see the best teachers in our state and how they’re advocating for our students and our profession. It’s a life-changing event.

UA: Since winning the award, how have you tried to use the platform that comes with it?

MH: My passion work is making math more equitable for students that we serve. A lot of the math that we teach is geared toward students who are aspiring to attend college, but many of our students aren’t aspiring to be college students. So I’ve tried to incorporate personal finance and financial literacy into my curriculum, to use mathematics that will help students navigate the world in which we live. Minnesota legislators just passed a law where students, starting in 2027, will need to take a personal finance course as a graduation requirement. That really ties right in with my work.

It’s also been part of my platform to speak about having more mental health services in our schools and recruiting and retaining teachers of color… But over the course of the year, what I noticed was that my platform sort of shifted to advocating for the profession, particularly around the collective bargaining that was going on. I tried to shine a light on all those districts where contracts were unsettled at the time, including St. Paul.

School districts are getting record funding, yet the compensation and benefits for teachers haven’t increased along with it. I think teachers aren’t feeling valued, especially when we are the ones on the front lines dealing with the aftermath and the trauma of COVID.

UA: Is there a moment over the last year that will always stand out in your memory?

MH: Probably not a specific moment, but what I really appreciate is running into former students when I visit a college, when they come and listen to my stories and share how much of an impact I’ve had on their lives. Teaching has felt like a thankless job over the last decade. When a teacher hears they’re doing something right and has an impact, it feels meaningful.

Filed Under: Labor Voices Tagged With: , , ,

Bargaining moves at slowest pace in two decades as Minnesota educators get bold

March 25, 2024 by

Members of the Burnsville Education Association held informational picketing before the March 14 school board meeting.

Union educators in Lakeville earlier this month voted down their district’s best contract offer 99% to 1%. Days later in Burnsville, hundreds of educators lined the street outside the district’s offices to demand administrators do better at the bargaining table.

Educators in the east metro and across Minnesota are being bold in their contract demands during this bargaining cycle, sticking together for compensation gains that, union members say, are overdue after years of underfunding – and key to addressing a teacher shortage.

“Every teacher in the Lakeville district is making less money in real terms than they were 10 years ago, even with raises for additional experience,” Johannah Surma, lead negotiator for Education Minnesota Lakeville, said. “Our pay just hasn’t kept up with inflation.”

Union members don’t expect to catch up in one contract, but their “no” vote, Surma said, sent a strong message that it will take more than the district’s last offer – a 1% raise in the first year and 5% in the second – to get them to settle.

Lakeville isn’t the only district where educators are holding out for more this year, following a record $2.2 billion state funding increase for public education. As of earlier this month, roughly 71% of Education Minnesota-affiliated local unions had settled their contracts.

“That is the slowest number in the last 20 years,” Education Minnesota Vice President Monica Byron said. “But that shows the hard work that all the locals across this state have been doing because they deserve it. We are all worth more.”

Already this school year, educators in large school districts like St. Paul, Anoka-Hennepin and St. Francis have voted to authorize strikes, although all three unions settled before a work stoppage.

Dozens of other Education Minnesota locals have staged informational picketing or public demonstrations before board meetings and outside schools, rallying community support for their contract demands.

The Burnsville Education Association (BEA) served pie to some 300 union members and supporters who joined an informational picket and rally on March 14, or “Pi Day” for math enthusiasts.

Afterward, union members spoke at a school board listening session, demanding a bigger share of the economic pie, particularly for adult basic education teachers and early learning teachers who are not yet on the union’s main salary schedule.

Educators are holding firm to some non-economic demands, too.

BEA members are looking to address concerns about violence in their schools, and demanding that educators who are injured at work don’t have to use their personal days to cover any absences before they qualify for workers’ compensation.

In Lakeville, educators are resisting a district proposal that would give administrators the power to transfer teachers into other positions that they are licensed to fill. Union members would be subject to involuntary transfers before or even during the school year, Surma said.

“Teachers develop relationships with kids, that’s kind of the foundation of how we do our work,” she said. “Students build trust with us, and we get to know them and know what they need. Disrupting that is really disruptive to kids.”

Both Education Minnesota Lakeville, which represents 765 educators, and the BEA, which represents about 650, had bargaining or mediation dates scheduled in late March.

“We hope to make progress,” Surma said. “That’s our first choice, to continue to make progress at the table toward a settlement that meets everybody’s needs and doesn’t disrupt the classroom for the kids.”

Lakeville educators will hold a rally with community supporters at 6 p.m. March 26 at the district offices, located at 17630 Juniper Path, Lakeville.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Educators call on MN lawmakers to restore the promise of their pension

March 1, 2024 by

Members of Education Minnesota rallied for pension reform Feb. 29 at the Capitol.

Hundreds of educators from across Minnesota packed the Capitol rotunda yesterday to demand that lawmakers fix inequities in the state-run pension plan covering most public school employees.

Several DFL legislators joined the rally and pledged to advance legislation that would invest some of the state’s projected $3.7 billion surplus into educators’ pension fund and reduce financial penalties some longtime educators face when looking to retire before age 66.

“Penalties are for hockey, not for pensions,” Sen. Heather Gustafson (D-Vadnais Heights) said, shouting out a hand-made sign that one educator brought to the Thursday-afternoon event.

Rep. Kaohly Her (D-St. Paul), chair of the Legislative Committee on Pensions and Retirement, said the newly announced surplus gives the state an opportunity to live up to its responsibility to education workers.

“We have a promise that we made to you that we would take care of you if you sacrificed the best years of your lives to take care of our children,” Her said. “That is why we need to do right by all of you.”

The statewide educators’ union, Education Minnesota, is making pension reform a legislative priority as disparities that have been baked into the Teachers Retirement Association since 1989 are coming to a head.

That’s when state lawmakers scrapped the “Rule of 90” – a formula that allowed pension participants to retire early with full benefits based on their combined age and years of service – for school employees hired after June 30, 1989, creating a two-tier system.

Now, thousands of “Tier II” teachers with 30-plus years of experience are facing a difficult choice that their colleagues hired before the cutoff never faced. They can work until age 65 and retire with a full pension, or retire early and lose a significant amount of their benefit to penalties.

Educators at the rally said the new system is bad for teachers, students and school districts.

“We have trapped teachers into staying beyond their own expectations of themselves,” Eastview High School social studies teacher Joe Wollersheim said. “Because it is so financially irresponsible to leave before a certain age, teachers are staying when they know they are not as effective as they want to be. And district budgets are squeezed, as they continue paying those at the top of the pay scale.”

Minnesota’s pension tiers not only create inequities within the state’s education workforce, but they also put Minnesota educators behind their colleagues in neighboring states. In Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota, the combined average age at which an educator can retire without pension reductions is 57.

Gustafson, herself a “Tier II” participant in the teachers’ pension plan, introduced a bill this session that would reduce penalties for early retirement. She said making the pension benefit more attractive would help schools attract and retain teachers at a time when most districts are short staffed.

“I know just how much we sacrifice financially to do the job,” she said. “We put our hearts, our souls, our tears and very often our own money into this job, and for most of us the one thing we have to rely on is that when we’re done, we’ll have a pension.”

Whether Minnesota educators can continue to rely on that promise – “a promise that we earned, that we paid for with every paycheck,” Education Minnesota President Denise Specht said – is up to lawmakers.

“We are not asking for a favor,” Specht said. “We are asking for fairness.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

St. Paul educators give away 40,000 books

January 30, 2024 by

Labor and community leaders joined a press event at the St. Paul book giveaway. Speakers (L to R) included St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson, Education Minnesota Secretary-Treasurer Rodney Rowe and Vice President Monica Byron, AFT President Randi Weingarten, SPFE President Leah VanDassor and St. Paul Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher.

The St. Paul Federation of Educators gave away 40,000 books to children, families and teachers Dec. 16 as part of their international union’s “Reading Opens the World” initiative, which aims to give out 10 million free books.

“As others ban books, we’re giving them out,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said during a brief program during the book giveaway. “As others try to stop kids from reading, we want to nurture minds and open the world to our kids and our families.”

Educators staged the event at Neighborhood House on St. Paul’s West Side, with volunteers unpacking boxes of books and arranging them by reading level. Organizers selected titles “that are diverse, that are interesting, that have lived experiences (relevant) to our kids and our families and our communities,” Weingarten said.

AFT launched “Reading Opens the World” in December 2021 as part of the union’s “Real Solutions”campaign to strengthen public schools and address learning loss, loneliness and literacy. So far, the international union has distributed 2 million books as part of the initiative.

In St. Paul, families could take home up to 30 books, and educators could take up to 50 free books for their classroom libraries.

Education Minnesota Vice President Monica Byron credited SPFE with “sparking so much joy in our community” with the book giveaway.

“To the educators that I see being able to grab books to share with their students across their classrooms, have fun and take those moments to see the joy,” Byron said. “And to the students, I hope you read these books over and over and over again because that’s where the magic happens –in the words, in the pages and in your minds.”

Co-sponsors of the book giveaway included the Saint Paul Regional Labor Federation, Teamsters Local 120, Saint Paul Parks and Recreation, Neighbor-hood House, Education Minnesota and the West Side Community Organization.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Great River staff union reaches first contract with St. Paul charter

September 26, 2023 by

Two years after voting to form a union with Education Minnesota, the teachers, support staff and other frontline workers of Great River School in St. Paul entered the 2023-24 school year with a first union contract in place.

Representatives of the Great River School Union and the charter school district drafted the agreement in bargaining over the course of about 18 months.

GRSU spokesperson Abby Mesnik, a high school math teacher, said the contract delivers on many objectives Great River employees had in mind when they sought a union election in May 2021, including pay transparency and greater stability in their benefits and work rules.

“People wanted some things in writing,” Mesnik said, noting that Great River was on the cusp of a leadership change during the union drive. “It wasn’t that they were necessarily unhappy with the current practices, but they wanted it preserved, and they wanted some consistency in what working in the school looked like. And I think the contract does that.”

Mesnik credited school administrators for taking a collaborative approach to negotiations. The district even brought in its own pro-union consultant to better understand the process and its staff members’ perspectives.

“We brought a draft of the contract that was very pro-union, and we just negotiated from that draft,” Mesnik said. “They never brought us their own version that we would try to reach a middle on; we would just make edits to ours.”

The contract covers about 120 employees at the Montessori charter school, which serves students in grades 1 through 12. GRSU is a “wall-to-wall” union, meaning teachers are in the same bargaining unit as support staff and even student workers, potentially.

That created a bargaining dynamic that’s unique in public education.

“We could not be separated in bargaining for funds,” Mesnik said. “We’re not just trying to move teachers up or just trying to move support staff up. We all rise together.”

The new contract puts every position covered by the unit into one of three pay scales, ensuring greater transparency and equity, Mesnik added.

“Now we can clearly track down what step and what lane people are on, what salary scale goes with which position,” she said. “Previously, there were not clear raises for folks. Some people were getting 5%, some were getting 2%, some knew to go talk to their boss and ask for a certain amount. Now there’s clarity.”

Other highlights of the contract include new incentives for advanced training in some positions, language around paid-time-off rollover, and a new independent retirement savings benefit, with an employer match after one year.

The contract also spells out for the first time what constitutes a working day and how many working days there are in Great River’s school year.

GRSU is one of five charter school unions in Minnesota. Teachers at the Twin Cities German Immersion School in St. Paul formed the state’s first charter school union in 2014.

Charter schools are publicly funded but exempt from some state laws in order to increase flexibility, autonomy and innovation. Minnesota is considered the birthplace of charter schools, having passed a first-in-the-nation law establishing their framework in 1991. Now, 180 charter schools serve about 76,000 pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade students statewide.

Mesnik said she and other GRSU activists often get asked by fellow union educators what it’s like to bargain a contract from scratch.

“I tell them it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people,” she said. “But it’s really exciting to join the labor movement and take power back as workers. We have a lot of power collectively, and it’s really cool to be on the other side with a contract and be able to say that these things are enforceable.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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