Target Field workers dig in for fair contract: ‘We love the Twins. We love the fans. But that love is not going to pay our bills.’

July 20, 2026 by
Roxy Hoda holding a picket sign outside Target Field

Target Field suites worker Roxy Hoda, a resident of St. Paul, is on her union’s bargaining team in talks with Delaware North.

For as long as the Twins have been playing baseball at Target Field, Roxy Hoda has been hosting fans in the luxury suites. The 37-year-old from St. Paul went to work at the ballpark in 2010, and she now serves on the bargaining team for her union, UNITE HERE Local 17, in contract negotiations with the team’s concessionaire, Delaware North.

Union members made history June 22, staging the first ever strike at a Twin Cities sports stadium, and Hoda was among those walking the picket line before the Twins and Dodgers took the field. In this interview, which has been edited for length, she talked about the decision to strike, why workers are pushing so hard for their demands and what hospitality workers want Twins fans to know.

UA: Did Delaware North make any effort to avoid this strike after you announced the date almost two weeks ago?

RH: We’ve met several times since then, and the only improvement that they made was saying that they would give our non-tipped employees and minimum-wage employees an extra 10 cents an hour, so a 60-cent raise over the life of the contract.

UA: That doesn’t sound like much movement.

RH: No, and they’re very careful with their language. They’ll say things like, ‘We only have so much allocated money. We only have so much in the pot.’ They want it to come across that they can’t afford it, but we know that’s not true. Otherwise, they would show their economic data to our union. They just don’t want to eat into their profit margins at all, not even for their own employees.

UA: You’re supposed to take their word for it.

RH: It’s tricky because we know our local management is just responding to corporate directions.

UA: Did management reach out today before the strike began, or have the Twins stepped in at all?

RH: My understanding is that everything has come to a halt. Delaware North has requested a mediator for our negotiations, which we as a union will not do (because) we know that will silence our voices. They want to sit in a separate room, so they don’t have to operate so carefully with their words and don’t have to listen to our employee impact statements. That’s unacceptable to us. We deserve to be in that room, especially since there has been little to no movement on many of our very reasonable requests.

As far as the Twins are concerned, they have not reached out to us as employees. I’m not sure about the union. I feel they are just trying to stay out of it. But I really hope that they see what we’re doing here today. We love the Twins organization. We love our guests. We love the fans. But that love is not going to pay our bills. It’s not going to get us healthcare. And we deserve, as hospitality professionals, to be treated that way.

UA: What are the big issues for you, personally?

RH: No. 1 is healthcare. My partner and I have two kids. Both of us are hospitality professionals, and we’ve had to rely on marketplace insurance for a long time. About three years ago we were paying $800 per month, not including deductibles. That was a lot, but it was doable. That amount has almost tripled. It is almost as much as our mortgage.

Delaware North has this opportunity to join the UNITE HERE Health Fund, which nationwide has over 200,000 union workers in it. Because of that, insurance companies are able to offer steep discounts. All we’re asking Delaware North to do is join that trust, but they’re not interested.

UA: With all the money made off of these stadiums, it doesn’t seem like too much to ask that employers pitch in toward healthcare.

RH: There are other stadiums (in the Twin Cities) with contracts that are coming open with other hospitality companies. A lot of my co-workers work at multiple stadiums, and that makes up a full-time job for them. We’re the first ones that are kind of setting the tone, and we want to make sure that we’re holding firm. We deserve healthcare.

UA: What do you like about working in the Target Field suites?

RH: It’s like my second family. I feel like I grew up here. A lot of us have been to each other’s baby showers, and I’ve had the same clients for a lot of the time too. I work with a lot of big companies throughout Minnesota, and I love them to death. Overall, I think it’s just such a joy.

Working here is important, too. I think the pandemic really showed us, when you take the fun out of life, what that looks like. That’s what we do. We want people to come to the game, have a good time, forget the worries going on in their lives, and make memories with their friends, family and loved ones.

UA: Have you ever been on strike before?

RH: No.

UA: What do you want people coming to the game – and all Twins fans – to know about this?

RH: We are hospitality professionals, and this is a real career. A lot of us have degrees in other fields. We do this job because we’re good at it, and it really does make a difference in people’s lives. I think people just don’t realize that because we’re always smiling, but it is socially taxing. Still, it is a passion of ours.

UA: You and many others are not going in to work today, but what do you expect will happen with those who do?

RH: We have seen some scabs coming in today. However, I’m giving them some grace because I know that this is scary, and a lot of people are very worried about their jobs. I understand that there is a hard decision to make here.

But even though not every issue on the table affects me personally, I know it affects a lot of other people at the stadium. To me, I think it’s more important to stand up for everyone and to be unified.

– This “Labor Q&A” appeared in The Union Advocate’s August 2026 print edition.

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

In unionization push, Alamo Drafthouse workers cut to the chase

April 17, 2026 by

Workers at Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbury (photo courtesy CWA Local 7250)

The time it takes to organize a union is typically measured in months, if not years. Not so for workers at the Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbury, who voted March 27 to join Communications Workers (CWA) Local 7250 in a process that took a mere six weeks.

It was as quick an organizing drive as anyone at CWA could remember and, according to workers, an indication of just how miserable a new digital ordering system has made the Alamo Drafthouse experience for both employees and moviegoers.

“It really eliminates the guest-to-server interaction – the community that comes with being part of the Alamo,” support crew member Isabelle Hernandez, 22, said. “The team, the movies and even our regulars really make the Alamo as special as it is, and we don’t want to lose that.”

Alamo Drafthouse operates 40 cinemas across the U.S. that provide moviegoers with the big-screen experience in a bar-and-grill setting.

The corporation has been gradually introducing a new business model at its locations over the last year, replacing servers who take tableside food and drink orders with a mobile app.

That change came to the Woodbury location, which employs about 60 people, on March 3.

For workers, it’s meant reduced hours, with no guarantee of even one shift per week. And for former servers like Hernandez and Max Chitwood, who previously earned tips, it’s meant a pay cut. Instead of taking hushed orders in the theater – and earning tips from customers – they now run food and drinks from the kitchen to the tables and clean theaters between screenings.

Chitwood’s hourly wage increased from $13 to $22 per hour after the change, but she said it’s not enough to cover the loss of her tips.

“For a lot of the former servers, it’s cut our paychecks in half, at least,” Hernandez said.

Guests have noticed the change too. Phone use, previously forbidden, is now encouraged by a QR code at each table.

“Alamo’s big thing has always been no talking and no texting,” Hernandez said. “They play that before every single movie. It’s just not the Alamo that we used to know and love. There are so many times now that I’ve caught people on their phones who weren’t ordering food.”

Hernandez isn’t alone. An IndieWire review last week blasted the changes: “Once America’s most promising movie theater chain, the Alamo Drafthouse has become a QR-coded symbol of corporate ens***tification.”

Aware that other Alamo Drafthouse locations had organized unions with CWA, Woodbury workers reached out to Local 7250 in February after getting “offer sheets” from management outlining their new terms of employment.

Within 24 hours of obtaining authorization cards from the local, half of eligible workers at the theater had signed one. Within nine days, they had petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union election, with support from a supermajority of 72%.

“They told us we set a CWA record for fastest total time between taking the first steps toward unionizing to filing,” Chitwood, 24, said.

Alamo Drafthouse tried to pump the brakes on workers’ momentum in the month between filing their petition and voting.

The corporate office sent a representative to Minnesota to “watch us and talk to us about why the union wasn’t a good idea,” Hernandez said. And local managers attempted one-on-one communications with staff members to persuade them to vote against the union.

Both efforts, workers alleged, crossed the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The corporate representative was recalled, and two workers quit over private messages from local managers that made them uncomfortable.

“It was nothing explicitly bad or outright aggressive, just very passive-aggressive, and it made the work environment uncomfortable or unsafe for those workers who left,” Hernandez said. “They were both really good team members, and we miss them.”

Ultimately, workers voted 33-14 in favor of forming a union, with one challenged ballot.

When negotiations on a first contract begin, union members hope to address wages, staffing and, of course, the new business model. Hernandez said other bargaining units have pushed for a hybrid ordering system that offers guests a choice between the QR code and in-person service.

Chitwood said the goal is to improve the Alamo Drafthouse experience for everyone, adding that many moviegoers who have learned about the union drive have responded with “a resounding hell yes, good luck in bargaining.”

“It’s reflective of how united we are as a team and how much we care about our co-workers and even the company itself,” Hernandez added.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Restaurant workers call on industry group to ’86 ICE’

February 27, 2026 by

Twin Cities restaurant and hotel workers bring their “86 ICE!” campaign to the offices of Hospitality Minnesota.

Workers in the Twin Cities’ restaurant industry marked the start of Valentine’s Day weekend with a march on the offices Hospitality Minnesota, where they demanded the trade association sign onto a campaign to protect immigrant customers and staff.

Workers at the Feb. 13 rally in downtown Minneapolis said the violent surge of immigration enforcement across the state over the last two months had sent many of their colleagues into hiding – or worse.

The “86 ICE!” campaign, a nod to industry slang for banning someone or something from an establishment, calls for employers and employees to work together on training, planning and surviving the crisis created by increased immigration enforcement.

Demands include refusing service to immigration agents, denying entry to agents unless they have a judicial warrant and training all restaurant employees in how to protect the rights and safety of customers and fellow staff members.

Two local worker centers, CTUL and the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Minnesota, are behind the organizing effort, and several local restaurant owners already have signed on, including Miguel Hernandez, owner of Lito’s Burritos in Richfield.

Signing onto the “86 ICE!” campaign, Hernandez said during the rally, would show that Hospitality Minnesota stands by the business owners who are doing the right thing.

“Most of these demands are already being done by a lot of good community business owners,” Hernandez said during the rally. “Of course, there’s always bad actors, and we need them to stand up for their staff, too.”

Organizers also want restaurants to pledge not to fire or discipline immigrant workers who miss shifts because they fear being harassed or detained.

Remy, a Minneapolis bartender, gives a shout out to his co-workers who were detained during Operation Metro Surge. “Some of them I’ll never see again.”

Operation Metro Surge may be over, but the number of agents, combined, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection remained about three times greater than previous levels as this issue went to press.

For Patti, an immigrant worker in the hospitality industry who asked not to share her last name, attending the “86 ICE!” rally was the first time she had left her home, aside from going to work when it felt safe, for over a month. She said co-workers helped with groceries and other supplies, and her employer offered flexibility and help getting to work safely.

But not everyone she knows in the industry has been as fortunate. Patti said it wasn’t until after a friend who works as a dishwasher was detained at a bus stop on his way to work that his restaurant began offering rides to vulnerable workers.

It’s a sad example, she said, of why “we need proactive safety plans and trainings at all restaurants.”

Several non-immigrant workers at the rally offered shout-outs to co-workers they worry they will never see again. Hazel, a server whose employer took the “86 ICE!” pledge, said workers in her restaurant were willing to strike to keep their colleagues safe.

“If nothing else, everyone must feel they are safe in their workplace,” she said. “They need to be protected by their employer. But more importantly and more personally, I want to say goodbye to my co-workers after a shift and know they will be there the next day.”

After the rally, a delegation of workers and business owners attempted to meet with a Hospitality Minnesota representative but were told the offices were closed for the day.

CTUL and ROC said supporters of the campaign have sent nearly 2,000 letters to Hospitality Minnesota, but the industry group has denied requests to “discuss a path forward.”.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Fair State, Schell’s brew together to celebrate solidarity

March 5, 2021 by

Fair State Brewing’s Union Lager is moving quickly in the taproom and in liquor stores – and in this reporter’s refrigerator, too.

Minnesota’s oldest and newest union breweries have teamed up to craft a beer celebrating solidarity in the workplace.

Union Lager is a collaborative brew by Fair State in the Twin Cities, where workers formed a union with UNITE HERE Local 17 last summer, and August Schell in New Ulm, where union members have been brewing beer since the 1930s. They currently are represented by the Steelworkers union.

The beer is crisp and moderately hoppy – a “crusher,” Fair State says on its website. Local 17 member Ian Sutherland, who uses plural pronouns, said the Union Lager is moving steadily in Fair State’s northeast Minneapolis taproom, where they work behind the bar.

“It’s beautiful,” Sutherland added. “It’s a good blend of hoppy and malty. It has a little of the hard-water profile, a little minerally. It’s a very good sessionable lager.”

Crafting lagers is a passion shared by the brewers and friends behind the collaboration, Fair State’s Niko Tonks and Schell’s Jace Marti.

When he saw the news Fair State workers had unionized last September, Marti quickly fired off a text message to Tonks. “I said congratulations on being unionized,” Marti said. “Let’s do a collaboration.”

It’s not often management celebrates its workers’ decision to form a union, let alone markets a new product around the news. But Fair State’s historic union drive was unique from the start.

Organizing was already afoot when Sutherland began bartending in June of last year. Within three months, enough workers at the taproom and Fair State’s St. Paul brewery were on board to petition management for voluntary recognition of their union, which they did the morning after Labor Day.

“Our brewer is kind of a neighborhood brewery now, but it’s starting to do some national distribution,” Sutherland said. “Our thinking was maybe it was time to cement some power in a union as we start to make the trek toward a larger-scale brewery.”

Fair State’s chief executive, Evan Sallee, immediately embraced the idea, Sutherland said. A day later, after consulting with the board of member-owners, Sallee celebrated Fair State becoming the nation’s first unionized microbrewery in an open letter on the cooperative’s website.

Sutherland said workers have been pleasantly surprised to see their union “become so integral” to Fair State’s identity. “It’s a cool thing that cements our place in the workplace,” they said.

Even better, Fair State has backed up its branding both at the table and on the shop floor.

Progress toward a first contract covering the union’s 20-plus members has been steady. Sutherland credited Local 17 Secretary-Treasurer Sheigh Freeberg with “playing the role of advocate for us and educator for both sides” as Fair State workers and managers familiarize themselves with the process.

The question everyone is trying to answer in bargaining, Sutherland said, is how to balance “the nimbleness required of a craft brewery” with a union contract.

“That’s the challenge, but it’s definitely headed in a direction that feels really healthy,” Sutherland added. “People are realizing if you want something to change, we have real power to try to make that happen.”

Whether the Union Lager will be available for a toast to Fair State workers’ first contract, whenever it’s settled, remains to be seen.

The two breweries developed their own batches and labels for the beer. Fair State’s product hit shelves first, and Tonks, Fair State’s founding brewer, said liquor stores snatched up their local distributor’s allotment in about a week.

“That’s fast,” Tonks laughed. “Response has been strong, and it’s pretty much gone.”

Fortunately for anyone who missed out, Schell’s batch should be ready for sale sometime this month. And Tonks said both brewers are looking for an excuse – contract ratification, perhaps? – to brew it again.

Marti said he isn’t surprised by the Union Lager’s success. The collaboration seemed to him charmed from Day 1, when he and Tonks decided to take their inspiration from the Westphalian Pale Lager, a German beer made famous by the now-defunct Dortmunder Union Brewery.

“It was known as a hard-working beer, a blue-collar drinking beer,” Marti said. “It all fit perfectly.”

*****

Want to talk about organizing your workplace with someone who’s done it recently? Sutherland and other Fair State unionists welcome the opportunity! Get ahold of them at fairstateunion [at] gmail [dot] com.

Filed Under: Community, 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.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

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.

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

Prominent activist to talk $15, #MeToo with tipped workers in St. Paul

January 16, 2018 by

Saru Jayaraman

A leading voice in the nationwide campaign to improve wages and working conditions for restaurant workers will meet tomorrow with tipped workers fighting for a $15 minimum wage in St. Paul.

In a 7 p.m. presentation at the St. Paul Labor Center, Saru Jayaraman will examine the connection between efforts to raise the minimum wage and the #MeToo movement to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. The event is free and open to the public.

Jayaraman is co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center and director of the University of California-Berkeley’s Food and Labor Research Center. An advocate of one fair wage for hospitality workers, Jayaraman walked the red carpet at the Golden Globes last week with Amy Poehler, one of several actresses who invited #MeToo activists as their guests.

Jayaraman’s visit to St. Paul reflects growing momentum in support of a citywide $15 minimum wage. Minneapolis put a strong $15 ordinance on the books last year, and St. Paul’s newly elected mayor, Melvin Carter, made $15 a rallying cry during his 2017 campaign.

A key question elected officials will face as they craft a minimum-wage ordinance is whether St. Paul, like Minneapolis, should establish one fair wage or carve out a subminimum wage for tipped workers, known as a tip penalty.

Restaurant industry groups fought hard for a tip penalty in Minneapolis, serving up doomsday predictions of layoffs and restaurant closings if servers’ wages increase. The same arguments already are surfacing in St. Paul.

Jayaraman’s work, meanwhile, has exposed the tip penalty’s troubling impact on working conditions in the restaurant industry. Tipped workers in two-tiered minimum wage states experience sexual harassment at nearly double the rate of their counterparts in states like Minnesota with no subminimum wage.

Learn more about the Jan. 17 event, RSVP and invite others to attend on Facebook. The St. Paul Labor Center is located at 353 West 7th Street.

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