Legal Services staff look to increase transparency in first contract

September 19, 2025 by

SMRLS workers, joined by labor allies, support their bargaining team on Day 1 of negotiations.

Newly organized workers at Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services entered negotiations on a first contract Wednesday in St. Paul, less than four months after voting to form a union with Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Workers held a brief, morning rally with supporters outside SMRLS’s St. Paul offices before the union’s elected bargaining team met with management at Minnesota’s longest-standing legal aid nonprofit.

Sarah Palm, a senior staff attorney based in Albert Lea, said increasing transparency at SMRLS was a main driver of the unionization push that began over a year ago, and it remains a priority in bargaining – particularly when it comes to wages.

“Nobody really knew what our pay scale is,” Palm said. “But we would like to get our wages to keep increasing. We’ve never had a COLA (cost-of-living adjustment).”

The union also hopes to establish basic rights in the workplace, codify benefits and remote-work rules, and expand holidays to reflect the cultural diversity in its bargaining unit, Palm said.

Bargaining could move quickly. The union’s negotiating team had sent management a full contract proposal before the two sides even sat down.

Negotiators modeled their proposal on existing union contracts at other legal aid providers, including Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid. Workers there formed a union with Council 5 in January 2024 and settled their first contract, with 14% wage increases, last June.

SMRLS’s new “wall-to-wall” bargaining unit brings together over 70 workers, including staff attorneys, support staff, accountants and development professionals at the organization, which provides services to low-income residents of 33 counties in southern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities’ east and south metro, as well as agricultural workers throughout Minnesota and North Dakota.

Paralegals at SMRLS have long been unionized.

Mario Solis, a member of the bargaining team who works as an attorney in SMRLS’ Agricultural Worker Project in Moorhead, was a member of the paralegal bargaining unit for nearly 10 years before obtaining his law degree last year. Working under a union contract, he said, is better.

“It’s a lot of security – this beneficial state of understanding your rights, what you’re entitled to and what your benefits are. And I hope this doesn’t come up, but if things go badly I’d like to think there’s going to be solidarity among the workers and we’ll have an understanding of how things should be dealt with.

“I felt that security in the paralegal union, and I miss it. So I’m excited to get that back.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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More advocacy workers unionizing in Minnesota

January 30, 2024 by

Workers at two prominent Minnesota nonprofit organizations, The Advocates for Human Rights and Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, have moved to unionize this winter.

About 110 staff members at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA) are participating in a union election after an overwhelming majority of workers signed a petition to join together and bargain collectively as members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 5.

Based in Minneapolis, MMLA is the state’s largest nonprofit law firm, and its employees are seeking to form a “wall-to-wall” union of workers from across the state, “reaching every office, unit, and job category within our organization,” according to an announcement by Council 5.

“Workers at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid fight to ensure that our clients – Minnesotans with disabilities, low-income Minnesotans – have access to dignity and justice in the civil legal system,” the statement continued. “It is long past time that the workers of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid are afforded the same basic protections.”

MMLA denied staff members’ request for voluntary union recognition, and workers filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board in late December.

Management has since challenged the eligibility of certain professional employees – including assistant supervising attorneys and managing attorneys – to participate in the bargaining unit with members of other job classifications, like paralegals, legal assistants, advocates and support staff.

The NLRB will issue a ruling on who is eligible for the bargaining unit, if necessary, after counting votes in the mail-in election Feb. 21.

Workers at The Advocates for Human Rights (AHR) had a very different experience in forming their union. Within 24 hours of presenting management with a union petition signed by 84% of eligible employees in December, they had won voluntary recognition from the Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization.

The new bargaining unit, AHR United, brings together 25 workers and is affiliated with Local 12 of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU).

AHR is dedicated to implementing international human rights standards to promote civil society and reinforce the rule of law, and its staff members engage volunteers in research, education, and advocacy to build broad constituencies in the U.S. and select global communities.

“OPEIU Local 12 members at AHR look forward to continuing in the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect as they head into contract negotiations early this year,” Local 12 said in a statement announcing the victory.

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Union approves first contract at Planned Parenthood North Central States

January 19, 2024 by

PPNCS United members held informational picketing in November – a strategy that workers credit with pressuring management to improve its health coverage.

Planned Parenthood North Central States workers in Minnesota and four other states voted to ratify their first union contract this week, capping a tumultuous round of negotiations with the reproductive health organization, where workers voted to unionize in July 2022.

The new contract takes effect retroactively to Jan. 1 and covers about 430 members of PPNCS United, who will see immediate gains in wages and health benefits, according to the union.

The contract establishes a 15-year wage scale and provides raises of 11.75% over three years, including a 4.5% increase in year No. 1. For Planned Parenthood’s lowest-paid employees, a new $19 minimum wage, combined with the first-year wage hike, will mean 17% increase in their pay.

“That’s a huge victory,” said PPNCS triage nurse Nicole Anschutz, who served on the union’s bargaining team. “Some staff who were getting $17 an hour are seeing that increase to almost $20 per hour immediately.”

Union members also won grievance and arbitration rights and a progressive discipline process that requires just cause for terminations – no small victory for a union whose elected leaders alleged that they were targeted and intimidated by management away from the bargaining table.

Anschutz joined the bargaining team after a wave of resignations and firings, prompted by PPNCS management’s move to deliver “final written notices” to all 14 workers elected to represent their union in negotiations. With no grievance or arbitration process in place, union members filed charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board last March – and are still awaiting a decision.

“There were other staff that weren’t a part of the bargaining team that were fired during this process for various reasons too, and we couldn’t fight that,” Anschutz said.

Shay Gingras, a senior research coordinator who served on the union’s bargaining team from the start, noted that the process has played out as PPNCS and its workers face new challenges – and attacks – in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“We’ve lost too many amazing staff members because of issues we have been facing inside and outside of the organization, so I am happy we won protections and other gains to recognize our important work supporting our patients,” Gingras said.

“As an original bargaining team member, I’m so proud of our team who have fought so hard for so long to win these gains. This has been a really long and difficult process and our fight will continue, but I’m really proud of what we were able to win in this first contract.”

Union leaders and PPNCS reached a tentative agreement on the three-year contract in their 37th bargaining session. Among members who participated in the ratification vote, 84% voted to approve the deal.

Nothing came easily at the bargaining table, committee members said, prompting union members to steadily dial up their public pressure on PPNCS leadership to settle a fair contract. Informational picketing in November outside several facilities, including in St. Paul, had an immediate impact, according to Anschutz.

“Prior to the informational picket, the employer had made it very clear we were going to get nothing on health insurance,” she said. “After the informational picket, we started getting things done on health insurance.”

James Willging, a senior community organizer at PPNCS, said health insurance will become more affordable, especially for workers with children and families, under the new contract.

“This contract gives frontline staff more stability so we can focus on the critical work we do every day,” Willging said. “We hope this will help address our staffing shortage so we can provide the compassionate and kind care our patients deserve.”

Although they celebrated their first contract, Anschutz and other union leaders were quick to note that their union’s efforts in support of workers’ rights and abortion rights is not done.

“It seemed impossible at times, like it was never going to happen,” Anschutz said. “I didn’t expect to cry as much as I did in the whole process. But it’s worth it to have the protections we have now and this foundation that we can build upon in the future.”

PPNCS United is an affiliate of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.

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Science Museum workers vote to unionize

January 20, 2023 by

SMM Workers show their union pride on Instagram @smmworkersunion.

Workers at the Science Museum of Minnesota have voted to form a union.

Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME) announced the election results today. Museum workers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union election in November, and the board tallied votes yesterday.

“Workers at the Science Museum of Minnesota have voted overwhelmingly to join together in a union with the AFSCME Council 5 family, calling for dignity and respect for the work they do,” Council 5 Executive Director Julie Bleyhl said. “In spite of a significant anti-union pressure campaign by Science Museum of Minnesota management, these workers spoke decisively that they seek a voice in the workplace, fair pay for a day’s work, dignified paid leave policies, and more.”

About 250 Science Museum employees were eligible to participate in the union election. The bargaining unit will bring together a wide range of full-time, part-time and seasonal workers, including scientists, researchers, lab technicians and accounting specialists.

Nicole Dzenowski, a paleontologist at the Science Museum, spoke during a rally in support of fellow AFSCME members at the state historical society.

Like other nonprofit workers who have formed unions in recent years, Science Museum employees said they joined together, in part, to increase their say in the organization.

“We want a seat at the table,” paleontologist Nicole Dzenowski said during a rally last month in support of fellow AFSCME members bargaining their first union contract with the Minnesota Historical Society. “Right now we have no ability to be a part of the decisions that affect us.”

Bleyhl said Science Museum workers “will have the full support of our union as they continue their momentum and fight for dignity and respect as they negotiate a first contract with the Science Museum of Minnesota that lifts everyone up.”

Council 5 represents over 43,000 workers, mostly in the public sector. But the union has welcomed over 700 nonprofit workers into its ranks in the last three years, supporting successful union drives at the Walker Art Center, Regions Hospital, Cornerstone Advocacy Service and the Historical Society.

AFSCME says it represents about 35,000 cultural workers nationwide.

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Union election begins for over 400 Planned Parenthood workers

June 27, 2022 by

Over 400 Planned Parenthood workers in five states, including Minnesota, will begin voting by mail this week in a union organizing election. The National Labor Relations Board will tally votes July 21.

Frontline workers at Planned Parenthood North Central States’ 28 facilities in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska are eligible to participate in the mail-in election. The bargaining unit would include workers in roughly 100 different roles, from admin and marketing staff to pharmacists and registered nurses.

The union drive, supported by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, began over a year ago, and workers petitioned for a NLRB election May 26 after collecting signatures of support from a majority of frontline staffers.

But at a virtual press conference held after the filing, workers acknowledged that a leaked Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade added urgency to the organizing push.

The ruling became official Friday, and it triggers laws criminalizing abortion – among the services Planned Parenthood provides – in the Dakotas. Anti-abortion lawmakers have pledged action in other states, too.

“Our right to provide this care is constantly under attack, and we can’t afford to lose dedicated, mission-driven abortion care providers to burnout and exhaustion,” said Sadie Brewer, a registered nurse at the clinic on Vandalia Street in St. Paul. “Now more than ever, we need as much protection and security as possible, and a union is going to give us that.”

Planned Parenthood workers provide cancer screenings, birth control, family planning, sexual and reproductive health education, political and community organizing and other services in addition to abortion care.

“We all chose to work for Planned Parenthood because we care for the mission and the community we serve, and the company has taken us for granted for far too long,” Brewer said.

Like other nonprofit workers who have formed unions in recent years, Planned Parenthood staffers hope to gain more control over decisions that affect their day-to-day work in support of the organization’s mission.

April Clark, a registered nurse from Iowa who has 10 years of experience with Planned Parenthood, said workers’ concerns too often go unaddressed by management, resulting in “an extremely high turnover rate” that she sees in her role as a senior training and development specialist.

“I am often training the same position in the same clinics over and over again, and this has been an ongoing trend for the last several years,” Clark said. “Caretakers often cannot voice issues on the job in a way that leads to meaningful change. We trudge on until we burn out, and then we leave.”

Planned Parenthood workers said wages and working conditions also factored into the decision to unionize. Many of her co-workers, Brewer said, are “overworked, underpaid and undervalued.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve seen many of these people move on after their ideas and concerns went unheard by the executive team far too long,” Brewer added. “The executive team is constantly making decisions that affect us with little to no input from the people doing the actual work.”

In that sense, Planned Parenthood workers said they believe collective bargaining will benefit themselves, their patients and the organization they support.

“As caregivers, we can be empathetic to a fault, and in part this has been why it has been so easy for our passion to be exploited,” said Mimi Arabalo, a health educator in the Omaha clinic. “But it is also why we are taking this stand together. What kind of Planned Parenthood employees would we be if we didn’t believe in advocacy?”

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With unanimous support, Public News Service staffers win union recognition

June 14, 2022 by

Three weeks after going public with their union, 16 employees of Public News Service (PNS) won voluntary recognition from management May 24 and will begin contract negotiations as members of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild, TNG-CWA Local 37002.

“We’re thrilled that management [at Public News Service] has voluntarily recognized our union,” the Public News Service Union posted on Twitter. “We look forward to negotiating our first contract, and working with management to create a sustainable and equitable future for PNS.”

The nonprofit, member-supported news organization covers 37 states, providing content to over 10,000 media outlets. The new bargaining unit brings together journalists, editors, audio engineers, and outreach and membership specialists based in locations across the country.

Nadia Ramlagan, a producer from Louisville, Ky., said PNS’s far-flung newsroom complicated the organizing process when it began about a year ago. But it proved a satisfying challenge to overcome.

“We’ve all really forged these deep relationships with one another, despite working remotely,” Ramlagan said. “I feel like my work life has been enriched. No matter what happens with the bargaining process, it’s really been a game changer.”

Workers requested voluntary recognition of their union after a petition for representation drew unanimous support from eligible employees. By granting voluntary recognition, PNS bypassed the lengthy National Labor Relations Board election process.

“I respect and recognize PNS employees’ right to unionize,” PNS founder and CEO Lark Corbeil said in a public statement. “Journalists have a staggering responsibility, and every editorial decision is a choice. Together, we must continue to put forward a collective vision of a just and sustainable future, and journalists’ safety and well being is central to that mission.”

Guild members said their top priorities in bargaining a first contract with PNS will be equitable working conditions and a fairer pay scale. They also will look to negotiations as a way to improve the news outlet and ensure its future viability.

“This is a group of really passionate producers and journalists who all saw ways that we could make our workplace better,” Ramlagan said.

In the last decade, workers at over 200 media outlets have launched union drives, according to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Locally, workers at MinnPost won recognition of their union with the Guild a year ago, and Minnesota Public Radio News staff members organized with SAG-AFTRA in 2017.

Ramlagan said PNS employees “definitely see ourselves as part of that wave of newsroom, white-collar and nonprofit workers” seeking a voice on the job.

“I think we’re at a crossroads collectively where the state of journalism can run on a system of exploitation forever until it totally collapses, or we change our approach to our industry, so it continues to be viable and sustainable and to attract good people who are in the work for the right reasons,” she said.

Bargaining, like the organizing process, will be a learn-as-you-go experience for most members of the fledgling union. Ramlagan, who has been with PNS for over three years, admitted to “a very limited understanding” of what unions do until recently.

“Everybody seemed to be in the same boat as me in that the idea of having agency as an employee and having the power to change your workplace for the better hadn’t really occurred to me, individually,” she said. “We’ve had some producers who’ve worked for Public News Service for seven to 12 years and are the most supportive of this effort, but they hadn’t taken that action until now.”

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Staff at St. Paul AIDS service organization vote to unionize

April 4, 2022 by

Rainbow Health workers (L to R) Andrea Hampel, Mikhail Koha Dei-Anang, Arabella Childers, Zoe Geisen and Aamina Mohamed, await results of the vote tally in their union election.

Workers at Rainbow Health have unionized after an overwhelming majority of the St. Paul-based nonprofit’s 60-person staff voted to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa last month.

The new union includes workers who provide HIV education and outreach, housing-access support, case management, behavioral-health services, benefits counseling and other support to clients, advancing Rainbow Health’s goal of ending HIV in Minnesota.

The National Labor Relations Board counted votes in the mail-in election March 30, and 95% of workers who cast ballots voted in favor of the union.

Like other nonprofit workers who have driven an uptick in union organizing in that sector over the last three years, Rainbow Health workers said they want their employer to be more transparent when it comes to decisions that affect their jobs.

“Most of our demands don’t have to do with our wages, but transparency overall,” said Tommy Lavelle, a community health advocate at Rainbow Health since May 2021. “There needs to be some kind of accountability, some kind of responsibility taken for how people have been treated.”

Zoe Geisen, a benefits counselor, said one of workers’ top demands is for at least two staff members to serve as liaisons to Rainbow Health’s board of directors.

“We have not always been included in or had timely information about important decisions that affect our programs,” said Geisen, in her fourth year with the organization. “By having our staff represented on the board of directors, we can more effectively advocate for our programs and clients.”

Other priorities workers hope to bring into contract negotiations include greater safety and stability for both staff and clients, and safeguards ensuring equity and respect. Nikki LeClaire, a medical case manager, said the union’s goals “are grounded in our dedication and responsibility to our clients and the communities we serve.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new challenges for frontline staff at the AIDS service organization, at a time when HIV cases are on the rise in Minnesota, according to the state Department of Health.

But Rainbow Health management has made it “more difficult for us to do the work,” said Naomi Kyndberg, a care linkage specialist with 6 years of experience in the organization. She cited recent decisions that, she believes, “harm our communities, especially our BIPOC communities.”

“I am fighting for our union so our leaders that work with the communities that we serve have a say in the work that we do,” Kyndberg said. “I am fighting for our union so that we can heal the harm caused to us and to our communities through the decisions our CEO and board members have made. I am fighting for our union to have a voice.”

Racial equity was a key driver of the organizing effort, Lavelle agreed.

“It’s been a really hard time for people of color at Rainbow Health, and we’re trying to turn that around,” he said. “It goes back to transparency. When we started talking about what we were getting paid, that was healing for people, and that’s a big part of why we formed this union – to get transparency for our programs, our funding, our own wages.”

After early discussions about forming a union last year, Rainbow Health workers moved to speed up the process, fearing retaliation from CEO Jeremy Hanson Willis, Lavelle said.

In February, after gathering signed union cards from a majority of staff members, workers delivered a letter to Willis and the board of directors asking for voluntary recognition of their union. After their request was denied, workers petitioned the NLRB for a union election.

Lavelle said board members would be better served if frontline staff had an opportunity to participate in the process of hiring senior managers.

“Rainbow Health has a history of having short-term CEOs that are not good, so we’re trying to figure out how we can get power over that process and stop the cycle of what’s been going on,” Lavelle said. “There’s an HIV outbreak in Minneapolis and Duluth right now. There’s real work to do. We don’t have time to be messing around.”

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Workers at Twin Cities mental health agency to vote on union

October 25, 2021 by

Wellness is at the heart of what Headway Emotional Health Services workers do on the job. It’s also at the heart of their union drive, which moved a step closer to the finish line last week.

Headway workers filed a petition Oct. 18 asking the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election covering 143 therapists, case managers, administrative staff and others employed at the nonprofit’s treatment facilities in Brooklyn Center, Minnetonka and Richfield.

Andrew Vanden Broeke, a day treatment therapist who works with children 12 to 17 years old, said Headway workers began organizing their union in June 2020, and have since collected signatures of support from a majority of staff members.

“The helping profession has reached this point where it’s no longer acceptable to place us on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to the labor we do,” Vanden Broeke said. “It may not be physically backbreaking, but it’s mentally and emotionally backbreaking.

“We can’t adequately serve others until we are adequately taken care of.”

Headway workers have outlined several priorities they hope to address in collective bargaining. Wages and benefits top that list.

Some workers, Vanden Broeke said, have reported going four years without a wage increase, and Headway recently increased health insurance premiums for many workers without notice.

“We get into the program because we want to help people and add something positive to the community,” Vanden Broeke said. “But what’s wrong with doing that and being able to pay our bills and put food on our table, being able to survive on only one job?”

Workers also want more power over decisions that impact how they do their jobs and how Headway supports workers from marginalized communities.

“The No. 1 thing that comes up when we’re having conversations with our co-workers is the lack of value we feel our employer places in us,” Vanden Broeke said. “They make decisions and don’t tell us until the decisions are final and on their way down, and we just have to deal with it.”

By seeking a more powerful voice in the organizations they serve, Headway and other nonprofit workers have sparked a recent wave of union organizing both locally and nationally.

Workers at no less than 18 Minnesota-based nonprofit organizations have formed unions since 2019. They include arts organizations like the Walker museum, media services like MinnPost and public radio stations, and advocacy groups like CTUL and TakeAction Minnesota.

Headway would be among the largest successful nonprofit organizing drives locally, although an even larger campaign – nearly 300 workers at the Minnesota Historical Society organizing with AFSCME Council 5 – appears headed for a vote soon as well.

MHS workers filed their NLRB petition Sept. 20 and have since reached an election agreement with the employer.

Headway workers, who are organizing with support from Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 12, sought a similar arrangement with their employer, hoping to bypass the contentious – and often expensive – NLRB process.

A delegation of about 20 workers marched on Headway’s director of human resources Oct. 14. They presented their union petition and asked management to accept workers’ decision and begin bargaining a first contract.

“We believe that our union’s core values – equity, transparency, security, and a voice for us workers – are consistent with Headway’s stated mission,” workers said in a petition to CEO Pat Dale.

Although Dale denied the request, organizers are still asking supporters from the community to contact Dale and urge him to change course and work with their union – or, at the very least, commit to refraining from threats, harassment and other anti-union tactics in the run up to an NLRB election.

Click here to sign the petition.

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Minnesota organizing drive puts the ‘union’ back in ACLU

July 19, 2021 by

Minnesota employees are part of a wave of organizing activity across the U.S. that is putting the “union” back in the American Civil Liberties Union.

After a speedy organizing drive that took just two months, eligible staff at the ACLU of Minnesota won voluntary recognition from the 70-year-old civil rights organization July 2, five days after the union announced it had support from a “supermajority” of 11 eligible employees.

The same week, employees at two other state affiliates of the ACLU, Arizona and Illinois, announced union drives of their own. In all, employees of 12 state ACLUs have gone public with their unions.

“We’re the ACLU; we’re built for this,” staff attorney Isabella Nascimento said with a laugh. “We have community organizers who do this work on a day-to-day basis. So it was very easy to have conversations with our colleagues about organizing a union.”

Locally, ACLU-MN Staff United is affiliated with the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild, TNG-CWA Local 37002. Negotiations with the ACLU of Minnesota on a first contract have yet to begin.

In a statement, union members said they hope collective bargaining will “create organizational stability and transparency; promote pay equity; develop stronger support systems for staff; increase equity and inclusion within the organization and its leadership; and hold management accountable for implementing the organization’s external principles – including its commitment to organized labor – within the walls of their workplace.”

They also expressed solidarity with “the growing movement of non-profit workers” organizing for more stable, inclusive and equitable workplaces.

Since 2019, workers at no less than 17 nonprofit and advocacy organizations in the Twin Cities have organized new unions – a trend that picked up steam in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide reckoning on racial justice following the murder of George Floyd.

“Throughout these several months of uncertainty, the mission of the staff at the ACLU of Minnesota has remained unchanged: to hold government accountable when it harms people and bulldozes their civil rights and liberties,” ACLU-MN Staff United said. “The staff expects that the face the organization projects to the public will match its internal ethos. Our decision to unionize represents an internal accountability mechanism and the staff’s unwavering commitment toward the organization’s success.”

The bargaining unit is likely to grow as the ACLU of Minnesota fills multiple open positions, Nascimento said. She said the organization has roughly tripled in size in recent years, resulting in some “growing pains that it was becoming increasingly difficult to fix internally without speaking with a collective voice.”

The successful organizing drive also puts employees in a better position to influence the process of hiring a new executive director. The ACLU of Minnesota’s previous executive director resigned, as planned, June 30.

“We think it’s really important staff has a voice in choosing the successor,” Nascimento said. “We know what makes for a successful organization for us and for the personalities we have in the office.”

In the meantime, leadership’s decision to recognize and respect its employees’ choice to form a union is having a positive effect on workplace morale. Nascimento said union members were pleased to see the organization live up to its stated position that collective bargaining is fundamental to workers’ ability to exercise their rights of speech, assembly and petition.

“It went very quickly, very seamlessly and non-contentiously,” she said. “It’s very collegial, and the atmosphere at the office is really energetic. It’s a huge show from leadership that they really are pro-union.”

Follow ACLU-MN Staff United on Twitter @aclumn_united.

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ILSR staff seek union to ‘internally reflect what we are externally organizing for’

July 19, 2021 by

[Update 7/21/21: Management has agreed to recognize the union, according to the ILSR Staff Union.]

Staff members at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance announced last week that they have formed a union, but leaders of the Minneapolis-based nonprofit have yet to act on workers’ request for voluntary recognition of their new bargaining unit.

Members of the ILSR Staff Union, an affiliate of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 12, sent a letter to the ILSR’s co-directors last Tuesday formally requesting voluntary recognition, which bypasses the lengthy union-election process governed by the National Labor Relations Board and, instead, allows workers to collect signed cards requesting union representation.

While the co-directors have acknowledged receiving the request, their only response as of last Friday was to say they are doing “their due diligence,” according to Jess Del Fiacco, a union activist who works as ILSR’s communications manager.

“We’re pretty disappointed,” Del Fiacco said. “Our organization is publicly very supportive of organized labor. I personally expected them to voluntarily recognize our union. But we’re still hopeful that we’ll get there.”

Workers have set up an online form for supporters to sign a letter calling on the co-directors, John Farrell and Stacy Mitchell, to move forward with voluntary recognition. Sign it here.

With offices in Washington, D.C., and Portland, Maine, as well as Minneapolis, the ILSR’s mission is to strengthen local economies and communities by fighting corporate control, making the organization a natural ally of organized labor.

The bargaining unit at ILSR would include 14 workers. They began discussing the idea of forming a union last summer, Del Fiacco said, with the organizing drive entering full swing by fall.

Since then, an overwhelming majority of eligible staff members have signed onto the union drive, according to organizers.

ILSR union members said they believe collective bargaining will give them more power to promote equity and transparency at the organization – and to advocate for their own well-being.

Del Fiacco said ILSR staff members face issues common in nonprofit workplaces, like pay disparities, unwritten rules and responsibilities stretching beyond employees’ job descriptions.

But she added: “We don’t see this as any kind of response to a terrible workplace or anything like that. I have nothing but respect for the leadership of the organization and the work we do. We’re excited to help build an organization that’s even stronger together.”

Union members are hopeful the ILSR co-directors – sooner or later – will see things the same way.

“We really want our workplace to reflect the values our organization has,” Del Fiacco said. “ILSR works for democratic institutions, and we think there’s no reason we shouldn’t internally reflect what we are externally organizing for.”

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