School board ducks meeting after striking workers plan to show

February 15, 2023 by

Laurie Potthoff, a food service worker at Hastings High School, speaks during an impromptu union rally after school board members canceled their scheduled meeting.

Striking food service workers in Hastings have a lot of questions for members of the local school board, who were scheduled to have a public meeting this afternoon.

Why won’t the district come back to the bargaining table?

Why does the superintendent deserve a 6% raise when 2% is the best he can offer food service workers?

What’s changed since the height of the pandemic, when frontline staff were praised as heroes for helping deliver thousands of meals to the community?

Unfortunately for workers, the board abruptly canceled its noon meeting, avoiding a face-to-face encounter with workers like Laurie Potthoff, a high school cook who spoke during a rally outside Kennedy Elementary instead of before the board.

“We are ready to settle this strike, and we are ready to go back and feed the kids. But the board won’t meet with us,” said Potthoff, who has six years of experience with the district. “Come on, school board. Bring us back to the table.”

In bargaining, the district’s negotiators have held firm that most food service workers should accept 35- to 40-cent raises. If the district’s elected leaders share that position, they should look workers in the eye and say as much, Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“I have a message for the Hastings School Board,” Gibbons said. “Shame on you. Shame on you for not coming to the table and not coming to this meeting and talking to these workers.”

Local 284 represents the 35 food service workers who have been on strike since Feb. 7.

Workers have refused to accept the district’s offer to raise their wages by 2%, with a one-time bonus. Union members want the wage scale increased by $3 per hour, and they say one-time bonuses won’t do enough to keep Hastings’ pay competitive with other districts in the area.

Starting pay for food service workers in the nearby South Washington County School District is $16.50, compared to $3.85 per hour in Hastings, where some workers with three years of experience are making just $15.05 per hour.

Hastings workers also accuse the district of inequitable treatment when it comes to ensuring a minimum number of work hours, and they are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums.

Striking food service workers picket outside Kennedy Elementary in Hastings.

The two sides, who had been working with a state mediator, haven’t met since Feb. 2, despite requests from the union to resume talks.

Instead of sitting down with workers, school administrators attempted last week to bully SEIU members back to work, sending out letters that warned they would lose their health care benefits and citing “End of Employment” as the reason.

It is illegal to fire striking workers under Minnesota public sector labor law. Members who have paid into their health insurance should have access to their benefits through the end of the month, Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“The district should be coming to the table to find a fair deal to get these incredible workers back on the job feeding Hastings students,” Gibbons added. “Instead they are sending letters that are misleading and possibly even illegal, hoping to scare our members into accepting a contract.”

Gibbons, a former school food service worker herself, said she hasn’t seen “such solidarity and commitment from a group of workers in a long time.”

The Hastings community, meanwhile, has shown striking workers overwhelming support, with multiple deliveries of food and drinks to the picket line. The feeling is mutual, according to Potthoff, who said she and her co-workers are ready to “get the warm meals back into our students’ bellies so they have the nourishment they need.”

“A frozen sandwich does not cut it,” she added.

The school board’s next scheduled public meeting is Wednesday, Feb. 22.

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

Workers tap into community support, put Surly on notice: ‘We’re not done here’

September 6, 2020 by

Credit Surly for this much: the union-busting craft brewer inspired one raucous Labor Day-weekend rally, drawing nearly 200 people into the streets outside its destination beer hall in Minneapolis today.

Workers at the gleaming, new complex in Prospect Park went public Monday with their plans to unionize. Two days later they received layoff notices, and Surly owner Omar Ansari, citing COVID-19 restrictions on restaurants and bars, announced the beer hall would close indefinitely Nov. 2.

Today, workers like Megan Caswell served Ansari with notice that they aren’t going away quietly, even if the beer hall is.

“We’re not done here,” the bartender said. “We’re still fighting.”

Caswell and her co-workers aren’t fighting alone.

UNITE HERE Local 17, the union representing more than 6,000 Twin Cities hospitality workers, has pledged legal action against Surly. And today’s demonstration followed a steady barrage of social-media backlash to Surly’s announcement.

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Workers and supporters marched along the public sidewalk bordering Surly’s makeshift beer garden, which steadily emptied as the protest swelled. Later, demonstrators shifted their route to extend through a crosswalk, halting cars and bicycles en route to the beer hall’s parking lot and turning dozens away.

Labor Day weekend in the Twin Cities usually brings working people of all stripes together for picnics and parades, canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The scene outside Surly offered a reminder of the history – and ongoing struggle for justice at work – behind the holiday.

Members of several Twin Cities labor unions jumped at the opportunity to celebrate by showing some solidarity.

“What better way to spend Labor Day?” asked Kyle Karr, a member of Minneapolis Fire Fighters Local 82, marching in his bunker gear.

Karr previously worked in the food-service industry.

“I’ve been in their position before, and they’re looking for the same thing I’ve been granted as part of a large, national union,” Karr said. “We’re all workers at the end of the day, and we all want the same things.”

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association, United Food and Commercial Workers, Service Employees, St. Paul Federation of Educators and other unions also wore their union colors to the demonstration.

“Like any other workers, Surly workers are fighting for a voice on the job, a voice in their safety and a voice in their welfare,” said Mat Terwilliger, business agent for Local 13 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees. “I’m going to support that anywhere it happens.”

Ali Fuhrman, president of AFSCME Local 2822, which represents Hennepin County clerical and related workers, said it’s particularly exciting to see union organizing happen at places like Surly. Research shows workers in the food-service industry face greater vulnerability to wage theft and sexual harassment, and less than 2% of workers nationwide are represented by unions.

“I’m sure all the other breweries and distilleries are happy Surly is doing this,” Fuhrman said of the company’s end run around its workers’ union drive. “I think momentum is starting to swing. It’s really exciting to see.”

The community support hasn’t gone unnoticed by Surly workers.

Natalie Newcomer, a former server who was fired by Surly on Aug. 5 – in retaliation for union organizing, she believes – said it was disheartening for workers to see their concerns about safety, economic security and customer experience dismissed so casually by management. But today’s rally, she said, is a reminder that the fight is worth it.

“It’s been really beautiful to watch the community get together and fight for what is right,” Newcomer said. “Our family has only grown stronger. And that’s an awesome feeling.”

Any regrets?

“Absolutely not,” said Caswell, who joined the rally after finishing a shift behind the bar. “I’ve never organized anything in my life – maybe my sock drawer. It’s been a real education, and I would do it again in a second if need be.”

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

Tattersall workers make history with union vote, raising hopes for industry-wide reform

August 20, 2020 by

At a rally in Minneapolis’ Chute Square last month, food service workers, including Tattersall employees, called for industry-wide reform.

Collective bargaining is in the mix for workers at Tattersall Distilling in Minneapolis after they voted in favor of joining together in a union.

The Twin Cities hospitality union, UNITE HERE Local 17, announced the news on social media today. Tattersall employees are the first at any craft distillery in the U.S. to form a union, UNITE HERE said, and the first distillery workers to do so in Minnesota.

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When Local 17 filed for an organizing election June 26, the would-be union included 27 Tattersall employees. The bargaining unit will bring together bottlers, distillers, bartenders, servers, dishwashers and hosts at the distillery and cocktail room in Northeast.

It’s the first successful union drive to emerge from an upwelling of collective action among Twin Cities food-service workers since restaurants and bars reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Krystle D’Alencar, a bartender and server, said she and fellow workers felt “treated as nothing better than a number” as Tattersall planned its reopening without giving them a meaningful voice in the process.

When workers confronted management with their concerns, D’Alencar added, they got a sneering response urging them to “remember that it’s a privilege to enjoy your job.”

D’Alencar’s comments came during a rally last month organized by food-service workers who want to see reform in the industry. The event in Minneapolis’ Chute Square park drew 150 people, who carried signs and chanted as they marched along a symbolic picket line.

The pandemic has layered concerns about health and safety atop existing anxieties, food-service workers said, like greater vulnerability to wage theft and sexual harassment in the industry, where less than 2% of workers nationwide are represented by unions.

Lux Wildenauer, who works at a Caribou Coffee in Minneapolis, described shortages of hand sanitizer and cloth rags, and a long wait for masks, which needed to display the company’s logo before workers could wear them.

“I’m tired of (bosses) saying they’re doing everything they can for us when our safety during a pandemic has been basically a do-it-yourself project,” Wildenauer said. “I can’t stomach that anymore.”

Workers at the rally released a public list of demands for restaurant owners, including health care and other benefits, personal protective equipment and a worker voice in safety policy, fair hiring practices, and equity in promotions, pay and treatment.

The workers framed the rally as a call to action to fellow food service workers to organize and fight for justice and dignity at work.

One in 10 Minneapolis workers works in food service, and the industry accounts for more than 5% of jobs statewide.

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