Still on strike, Starbucks union gains strength with organizing win in St. Paul

December 11, 2025 by

St. Paul baristas celebrate their successful union election at the Starbucks on West 7th Street. (@mnsbuxunited on Instagram)

Baristas at a Starbucks in St. Paul voted 18-1 in favor of forming a union with Workers United yesterday, as the union’s open-ended strike at over 130 cafés across the U.S. approaches the one-month point.

Workers at the Starbucks at 2525 West 7th St., near the intersection with Davern, filed for a union election Sept. 30, but the federal-government shutdown halted the National Labor Relations Board’s work, delaying the vote until Wednesday.

The organizing victory restores the number of Minnesota locations where workers have formed unions with Starbucks Workers United (SWU) to 14. Starbucks abruptly closed a unionized store at 300 Snelling Ave. S in September, giving workers just two days’ notice.

Union members at three Starbucks in the Twin Cities have joined the nationwide strike, according to a memo published by SWU. Workers have pledged to stay on strike until the company resumes negotiations over the framework for first contracts at its cafés.

The open-ended strike began Nov. 13, and baristas in St. Anthony were there for it, shutting down the store at 3704 Silverlake Rd. NE. They picketed along the busy street and held an afternoon rally in the parking lot, supported by dozens of community members and baristas from other stores.

Union members shut down the St. Anthony store on Day 1 of the nationwide strike.

Union baristas in Chanhassen began an open-ended strike at their store, located 190 Lake Dr. E, later that weekend. Workers at the Starbucks on the first floor of the Mall of American, near the rotunda, have since joined the strike too, according to SWU.

Anton Olson, an 11-year veteran of Starbucks who has worked the last five years in St. Anthony, said he and the two dozen other union members at the store were in the fight to win – as long as it takes.

“It’s a tough decision, but we have a bunch of people supporting us, and we’re supporting each other,” Olson said.

The easiest way to show support for Olson and other union baristas is to take the pledge at nocontractnocoffee.org. Striking baristas also welcome support on the picket line, with shifts and locations posted to an interactive map on the website.

And striking baristas plan to rally Dec. 20 at 2305 Fairview Avenue in Roseville, where workers voted to unionize in August 2022 but have not yet joined the strike.

In balloting that began Oct. 27, SWU members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, with 92% support from participating baristas across the country. But each unionized store is a unique bargaining unit, which decides on its own when – and whether – to join the strike.

SWU represents over 11,000 baristas at about 550 Starbucks locations nationwide.

SWU and the company announced an agreement in February 2024 to begin negotiating a framework contract on the national level, making it easier for workers to settle a first contract on the local level.

That process resulted in key gains, union members say, but talks have stalled since Brian Niccol became CEO in September 2024. The two sides entered mediation earlier this year, but in the six months leading up to the strike, Starbucks refused to offer new proposals in response to workers’ key demands.

Striking baristas and supporters picket in St. Anthony.

Those demands include better staffing, higher pay and resolution of hundreds of unfair labor practice charges from bargaining units across the country.

Lorelei Lind, who works at the Fairview Avenue location, said Starbucks has made “unlawful changes” to its policies without consulting baristas’ union — “limiting our dress code, targeting partners with piercings, denying customers access to free water.”

“I have seen partners – experienced partners – belittled, their opinions ignored and their experience undermined,” Lind added.

In failing to consult with its workers, Niccols and other executives ignored safety, customer-satisfaction and other concerns, St. Anthony union member Foren Lee added.

“Time and time again, we have reiterated our demands to Starbucks,” Lee said. “Time and time again, we have received nothing in return but unfair labor practices, ever-changing [and] unlawful policy changes, two-day-notice store closures that laid off thousands of baristas, and a menu that increasingly grows less and less simplified.”

Baristas know that won’t change without a union contract, and they won’t get it without solidarity.

“Four years of time has seen it proved that a contract will not be given to us,” Lind said. “We must fight for it.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Allina cancer center nurses vote to unionize after management shrugs off safety concerns

February 29, 2024 by

Registered nurses at the Allina Health Cancer Institute voted yesterday to form a union, joining together to push back against changes that, nurses say, have put patient safety – and their professional licenses – at risk.

The bargaining unit brings together 21 nurses at AHCI facilities on three Allina hospital campuses, United in St. Paul, Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis and Mercy in Coon Rapids.

Nurses voted 17-2 in favor of joining the Minnesota Nurses Association, the union of 22,000 health care professionals. Nicole Novak, an oncology infusion nurse AHCI’s Minneapolis facility, called it “a huge victory” in nurses’ fight for patient safety.

“With all these budget cuts, it feels like the priority has been taken off of patient safety and on how we can help Allina financially,” she said in a video posted on social media to announce the election results.

Allina Health launched its cancer services facilities in 2021.

Since then, AHCI nurses “have helped grow these clinics and developed lasting relationships” with fellow care team members, patients and their families, Lisa Fox said. But the St. Paul-based oncology nurse described a downside to AHCI’s growth.

“We have seen growth lead to unclear policies and procedures that could threaten the health and safety of our patients, along with our licenses and our livelihoods,” Fox said. “Inadequate patient-nurse ratios have led to burnout that many other health care workers are all too familiar with.”

AHCI nurses said they got serious about forming a union after management brushed aside their concerns about abrupt changes to the workflow in AHCI facilities resulting from consolidations across the Allina hospital system.

According to nurses, Allina began routing non-oncology patients – including pregnant people – to AHCI facilities for care after executives closed Abbott Northwestern’s inpatient infusion center. AHCI oncology nurses like Kate Spitzer worried they lacked the guidance, training and equipment to safely care for the new patients.

“When we brought those concerns to management, we were told they were building the plane as they were flying it, and that we’d be failing forward together,” Spitzer said.

AHCI nurses filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 24.

When negotiations on a first contract begin, the new union members intend to advocate for fairer schedules and safe nurse-to-patient ratios, as well as policies that protect and value nurses’ professional judgment.

“We want our patients to be safe,” Spitzer said. “We want our licenses to be safe. We want to have a good work-life balance. We want to continue to do the work that we’re so passionate about.”

AHCI nurses are the second group of Allina Health workers to form a union with MNA in the last year, joining the system’s sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) employees, who formed a union in September 2023.

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MN workers win union elections at nonprofit law firm, Fairview hospital, ADT and recycling startup

February 23, 2024 by

(Teamsters Local 120 photo)

Recycling, security and health care workers in the Twin Cities voted to form unions recently in separate elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, as workers continued to show interest in joining together to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions.

And on Wednesday the NLRB tallied votes in a mail-in organizing election covering 130 workers at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, who voted 70 to 25 in favor of bargaining 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 forming a “wall-to-wall” union of workers from across the state.

Management has 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 has not yet issued a ruling, but it will not impact the election results.

“From the outset, these workers have made their priorities clear – they are committed to putting their colleagues, clients, and communities at the forefront of their mission to come together and form a union,” Council 5 said in a statement. “Their dedication to solidarity and community exemplifies the true spirit of unionism.”

In other local union elections:

• Health unit coordinators at M Health Fairview Riverside Hospital voted to join SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa on Feb. 13, with 77% of participating workers voting yes.

The new bargaining unit of 32 employees joins over 1,500 area health care workers who have joined the SEIU local since 2021. Two other groups of workers – at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis and Unity Hospital in Fridley – have also filed for elections with the union.

• Twin Cities-based security technicians with ADT voted 14-4 in favor of forming a union with Communications Workers of America Local 7250 in an election held Feb. 16. The bargaining unit brings together 22 tech engineers, classic technicians and service technicians.

• Workers at Ridwell, a recycling startup with a branch based in St. Paul, voted unanimously to unionize Jan. 30. The company’s seven drivers and warehouse workers in Minnesota will join Teamsters Local 120.

Jamie Hoekstera, a Ridwell driver, said workers hope to bargain a first contract that addresses their concerns over wages, benefits and working conditions.

“My coworkers and I voted to become Teamsters so that we can gain a voice in our workplace,” Hoekstera said. “I am excited to work under a strong union contract that will give me a say in the decisions that affect my career and future.”

The St. Paul unit is the third group of Ridwell workers in the U.S. to join the Teamsters.

Ridwell’s services include reusing and disposing of hard-to-recycle items like batteries, lightbulbs and plastic film. Since its founding in 2018, Ridwell has expanded from Washington state to California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

“We look forward to helping this new group of Teamster workers negotiate a strong contract that reflects the critical work they provide to their communities,” Local 120 President Tom Erickson said.

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‘Riding the union wave,’ Minneapolis Trader Joe’s workers win landslide election

August 14, 2022 by

Minneapolis Trader Joe’s workers Sarah Beth Ryther and Francisco Lopez embrace after hearing the results of their union election.

Minneapolis is home to the nation’s second unionized Trader Joe’s store, after workers voted overwhelmingly last week in favor of joining together to bargain with the retailer for better wages and safer working conditions.

About a dozen workers on hand Friday, when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) counted votes in a delivery bay behind the downtown store, celebrated the landslide result – a 55-5 win for the union – with hugs and chocolate chip cookies.

“We are so absolutely excited,” Sarah Beth Ryther, a crew member at the Minneapolis Trader Joe’s, said after the vote count. “This has taken so much time and work and dedication.”

The organizing campaign began in early spring, and workers approached management in June with a petition, signed by a majority of employees, requesting voluntary recognition of their union.

The grocer denied that request, prompting workers to file for an election with the NLRB.

Corporate executives used the six weeks between receiving workers’ petition and balloting to try to undermine support for the union drive. “They were taking employees aside, telling them untrue things about what a union could be in our store,” Ryther said.

It didn’t work, she explained, because workers understood they were the union. “We’d been having conversations with each other since early spring about what we wanted our union to look like.”

Workers in Hadley, Mass., were the first in the 535-store grocery chain to unionize in late July. Both groups elected to join Trader Joe’s United, an independent union that is not affiliated with international unions or federations like the AFL-CIO.

But workers in Minneapolis said they already feel at home in the labor movement, which has seen a recent burst of organizing at nationwide chains like Starbucks and Half Price Books. Trader Joe’s United has active organizing drives at other locations too, including Colorado.

“It feels like we’re riding the new union wave,” Ryther said. “We’re psyched to be the second Trader Joe’s to do this, and if other Trader Joe’s workers want to join us, we’d welcome them with open arms.”

In bargaining a first contract, workers said they intend to push for better wages and benefits, and for more robust safety training and security measures after a string of unsettling incidents in the store earlier this year.

Ryther said when local managers have passed along workers’ safety-related concerns to corporate in the past, they “have fallen on deaf ears.” That will change now that employees have a seat at the table.

The California-based grocery chain has expressed a willingness to engage in bargaining. After workers in Hadley won their election, the corporation released a statement saying it was disappointed but “prepared to immediately begin discussions with union representatives for the employees at this store to negotiate a contract.”

“We are willing to use any current union contract for a multi-state grocery company with stores in the area, selected by the union representatives, as a template to negotiate a new structure for the employees in this store; including pay, retirement, healthcare, and working conditions such as scheduling and job flexibility.”

 

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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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After landslide union election, M Health psych staff ready to bargain for wages, safety

September 28, 2021 by

(SEIU photo)

A resounding “union yes” vote, announced today, gives 350 psychiatric associates at M Health Fairview momentum as they look to negotiate better wages, safety protections and a voice in decisions that affect their jobs.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, which backed the essential workers’ organizing drive and will represent them in bargaining, said 98% of participating workers voted in favor of unionization. Balloting took place by mail, with votes counted earlier today.

Psychiatric associates have been discussing the idea of forming a union for at least 10 years, union supporters said in a virtual press conference held hours before the vote tally. Eric Immler, who works in M Health Fairview’s adult inpatient units, said his excitement was “hard to put into words.”

“Having a seat at the table, feeling respected is going to allow me to better focus on my patients and collaborate with my co-workers – and [retain] good employees,” Immler said. “We hope Fairview comes into negotiations after we certify our union realizing how serious we are and in good faith.”

Like many workers forming unions recently, M Health Fairview employees said the COVID-19 outbreak gave their campaign a sense of urgency. Senior psychiatric associate Andrea Rivas described working in small, confined areas with patients who sometimes refused to wear masks, and uncertainty over access to personal protective equipment.

But Rivas and her colleagues also pointed to increasingly dangerous working conditions in their field. Health care workers account for the majority of all nonfatal workplace injuries in the U.S., and injury rates are highest among workers in psychiatric and substance-abuse facilities.

Rivas is still dealing with the effects of a concussion she suffered nearly eight months ago, when she was “punched repeatedly” after rushing to the aid of a co-worker who was being assaulted. Erin McCormick, who works at M Health Fairview’s intensive treatment center for children, said people in her line of work are “in constant fight-or-flight mode” and burn out quickly as a result.

“During my time, I’ve been head butted and spent the night in the ER,” McCormick said. “While I was pregnant, I also got punched by a patient. Luckily, I turned at the last second and the patient punched my arm, but I was constantly worried about my baby’s health.”

To reduce violent incidents, workers said, they will bargain hard for contract language that requires safe staffing levels and puts preventative protocols in place, both before and after violent incidents.

The fledgling unit also hopes their first contract not only will raise wages, but ensure equitable pay. During their organizing drive, McCormick said, psychiatric associates discovered a pay gap between men and women.

“Having an open conversation about pay and a contract where everything is formalized will help to address these issues,” she said.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota already represents nearly 2,000 workers in the M Health Fairview system. Psychiatric associates will build their own contract, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota said, that addresses the professional needs of the “most patient-facing staff in the mental and behavioral health field.”

Rivas said she believes giving psychiatric associates a seat at the table will be good not just for workers, but patients too.

“We interact closely with patients during their entire inpatient treatment,” she said. “Despite our close contact, we are left out of important meetings, and our opinions aren’t asked about patient concerns. This not only feels disrespectful, but it also means we are missing out on important information that could affect our clients.”

“Mental health is so important, but our society doesn’t seem to value it or the work done to help support those in crisis,” McCormick added. “We’re joining together in our union to help show that our patients and this work is important.”

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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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House votes to restore worker voice on the job

February 6, 2020 by

Dee Ann Christensen and Mike Landers, both retired union members who attended the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s campaigns conference today, call their representatives in support of the PRO Act.

The U.S. House of Representatives tonight passed a bill to strengthen protections for workers trying to join together in a union.

The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would create new penalties for employers who illegally intimidate or fire workers for organizing a union. It would repeal state right-to-work laws, protect the right to strike and give workers new tools for bargaining a first contract swiftly.

A top legislative priority for organized labor since Democrats took control of the House a year ago, the PRO Act would be the most consequential labor-law reform in 80 years – if it weren’t dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Still, the House vote affirms that labor-law reform remains a key piece of Democrats’ election-year agenda.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the PRO Act “the most significant piece of legislation that will come before Congress this year,” and said the nation’s largest labor federation would use today’s vote to draw a line in the sand.

“Those who would oppose, derail or delay this important legislation, do not ask us for a dollar or a door-knock. We won’t be coming,” Trumka said during a Capitol press conference. “But stand with us today, and we’ll stand with you tomorrow.”

Trumka’s message echoed loud and clear with federal lawmakers from Minnesota, who received calls from over 100 union members and retirees gathered for a conference in Minneapolis today.

“Our outdated labor laws are no longer effective to make sure working people have their voices heard,” the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Melissa Hysing told activists attending the federation’s two-day campaigns conference. “The PRO Act restores fairness to the economy and ensures working people share in the massive wealth we have helped create.”

Four DFLers co-sponsored the PRO Act: Reps. Angie Craig, Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar and Collin Peterson. Rep. Dean Phillips also voted in favor of the bill.

McCollum, who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, said the PRO Act would restore fairness to the economy and help curb rising income inequality.

“The PRO Act strengthens workers’ power to stand together and negotiate for higher pay and better benefits,” she said. “For women who are part of a union, the gender pay gap is nearly eliminated, and union members of color have nearly five times the median wealth of their non-union counterparts.

“Anti-union and anti-worker attacks have led to the decline of the middle class. It’s time we pass the PRO Act and restore the constitutional right to organize, putting power back into the hands of American workers.”

Despite polls showing historically high public support for unions last year, the percentage of U.S. workers who belong to unions continued a four-decade decline. An MIT survey from 2018 found about half of private-sector workers, or 60 million people, wanted a union. Only 6.4% actually have one.

The disconnect, union organizers say, stems from bosses’ increasing disregard for laws meant to protect workers during union organizing drives. Employers broke the law in 41.5% of union elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board in 2016 and 2017.

“They just view it as a cost of doing business,” Jeff Lachler, a Minneapolis-based organizer with the Communications Workers of America, said. “There’s every incentive in the world to break the law, and there’s no real downside as long as you succeed in keeping the union out.”

While federal law prohibits employers from harassing, threatening or firing workers for supporting a union drive, the penalties for breaking those laws lack teeth.

In many cases, employers found guilty of breaking the law must post a notice acknowledging their misdeeds or making workers aware of their rights. In the case of workers fired for union activity, employers have to reinstate them with back pay, if they haven’t already moved on to another job.

But the process, which includes board filings, hearings and appeals, is lengthy, and that works to employers’ benefit, Lachler said.

“Even if they have to bring the worker back, there are no punitive damages,” he said. “In the meantime, they’ve succeeded in scaring everybody else from going through with an organizing drive.”

In addition to giving the NLRB authority to fine employers who break labor law, the PRO Act allows workers to seek justice in court. That would be key for workers who can’t afford to wait for the lengthy NLRB process to run its course.

Other provisions of the bill would prohibit employers from permanently replacing workers who strike, and make so-called “secondary strikes” legal, allowing workers to strike in solidarity with their co-workers.

The PRO Act would make mediation and arbitration mandatory to settle lengthy disputes over first contracts. Nearly half of newly formed unions fail to reach a contract with the employers.

The bill also includes provisions to stop employers from misclassifying workers as “independent contractors” in order to avoid workers comp and other liabilities. It would make fast-food companies and other franchising corporations more responsible for labor practices throughout their chain.

And it would require employers to disclose whether they are paying an outside firm to help defeat a union organizing campaign. A recent analysis found employers pay about $340 million annually to outside firms for “union avoidance.”

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Unions gaining public favor, losing ground in workplace

March 7, 2017 by

Union members are becoming increasingly scarce in the U.S. labor force. It’s a trend that continued in 2016, when union density fell from 11.1 to 10.7 percent of the total workforce, according to federal report issued in January.

Unions’ demise has assumed an aura of inevitability. So when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on unions, media outlets mostly yawned. The headline – “Union membership dips to lowest point in recent history” – showed up in the cable-news crawl, as a one-off tweet or buried inside the Business section.

Four days later the nonpartisan Pew Research Center released results of a different survey, showing more Americans – roughly six in 10 adults – view unions favorably than at any time in the last 15 years. Young people, in particular, hold favorable views of unions – three-quarters of those ages 18 to 29, according to the Pew report.

How can union membership be declining while unions’ popularity is surging? Why aren’t more people forming unions?

Labor experts and union organizers say the seemingly contradictory trends illuminate just how challenging the process of organizing unions is, particularly in an economy that looks little like it did when U.S. labor laws were drafted 80 years ago. But experts also say the numbers don’t reflect non-traditional organizing campaigns that have picked up in recent years, many of which are yielding improvements for working people and, more broadly, helping the labor movement stay relevant.

“I feel like we’re at a moment of pretty dramatic change where there needs to be a different model, a different way of doing things,” Monica Bielski Boris, director of the University of Minnesota’s Labor Education Service, said. “Unions were a pretty important part of changes that led to our current (labor laws) in the 1930s, and I’m hopeful they will also be an important part of that happening again.”

People like unions!

Pew’s survey results, which showed a remarkable, 12-point uptick in unions’ favorable rating in less than two years, don’t surprise Cat Salonek, who has worked 10 years as a union organizer, now locally with the Communications Workers of America and the Newspaper Guild.

Being slighted or disrespected at work, she said, is a near-universal experience among working people, and most of the time they feel powerless to do anything about it. Unions appeal as a way to take power back from their bosses.

“The No. 1 reason people want to form a union is dignity and respect in the workplace,” Salonek said. “You might think it would be pay – and it’s a close second – but the No. 1 reason is they’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. Most people really want a union because they’re being treated so badly.”

The petty grievances have a way of adding up, Salonek explained. One group of workers reached out to her after management, responding to their repeated requests for a water cooler, finally gave in, but refused to provide cups. Another group decided to organize after their boss removed the break-room table. “They were so outraged they drew a chalk outline on the carpet of the floor where the table used to be,” she said.

Retail and health care workers approach St. Paul-based United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 with concerns about unpredictable schedules and paid time off, organizing director Abraham Wangnoo said. “People with young families want to be able to see their kids’ sporting events, to plan their lives.”

That’s not to say rising income inequality and corporate power aren’t behind renewed interest in unions, too. Young workers were particularly “drawn into that analysis of corporate power and wealth” put forth by Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, Bielski Boris said. “Unions were seen as part of a solution to deal with those problems.”

“They realize not every person is going to be the CEO of a company,” Wangnoo said of young workers. “They have to stick together.”

Pro-union Jimmy John’s workers picketed outside a Minneapolis store in 2011. (file photo)

Broken system

Perception isn’t the problem unions face, organizers and experts say. A broken system is.

In 2011, after their repeated requests for paid sick days fell on deaf ears, workers at several Jimmy John’s sub shops in the Twin Cities decided to unionize. Their scrappy, upstart effort drew enough support to prompt the National Labor Relations Board to conduct an historic union election in the union-free world of fast food.

The franchisee, MikLin Enterprises, responded with a campaign intended to scare its 170 employees from supporting the union. MikLin fired six workers active in the campaign, a move that sapped momentum from the organizing drive. Workers voted 87-85 against a union.

The six workers filed complaints with the NLRB, arguing MikLin had fired them in retaliation for exercising their legally protected right to engage in union activity. One year later, an administrative law judge sided with the workers, but MikLin filed the first of a series of appeals that ended, finally, five years after the organizing election, when a federal appeals court ordered the six workers reinstated to their former jobs.

But by that time, as documented in a Huffington Post report, all six workers had long since moved on to new careers, from computer programming to teaching. The idea of going back to fast-food work was laughable, but it laid bare the challenge working people face when they organize a union.

“Not only is the process very cumbersome, the penalty for employers who engage in bad behavior during an election, including firing people, has never been very real,” Bielski Boris said.

What happens after an employer gets wind of union organizing in their shop?

“They hold one-on-one intimidation sessions, use coworkers to apply pressure, spread misinformation about strikes, about dues,” Wangnoo said. “It is hard to imagine, to understand the pressure it puts on somebody who has kids and a life they want to live and bills they have to pay. It’s terrifying.”

Dwindling resources

Unions’ high favorability rating is playing out in NLRB elections nationwide, which unions won at a rate of about 70 percent from Oct. 1, 2015, through December 2016. But the very number of organizing elections taking place – just over 100 per month across the country during that span – illustrates how hard it is for workers to rally enough support to call for a vote. (Most organizing elections are held by the NLRB, but not all. Public-sector elections in Minnesota, for example, are conducted by the Bureau of Mediation Services.)

Monica Bielski Boris (L), shown speaking at a press conference last year, holds a PhD in industrial relations. (file photo)

Employers’ sophisticated, anti-union campaigns are one reason organizing drives don’t often reach the threshold for an NLRB election. Another, Bielski Boris said, is the level of resources it takes to conduct an organizing drive – resources unions are finding increasingly scarce.

Outsourcing and automation, Bielski Boris said, have decimated sectors of the economy, namely manufacturing, rich with union density. Shrinking membership, combined with anti-worker “Right to Work” laws, have forced many unions to choose between responding to workers who want to organize and providing service to existing members.

“It’s incredibly expensive for unions to organize,” Bielski Boris said. “The process is so arduous that even unions who want to organize have some trepidation.”

A changing economy, a new organizing model

Ironically, while working people crave the stability and security a union contract provides, the economic forces at play in destabilizing the workplace are, themselves, barriers to organizing unions.

As more workers settle for short-term gigs – think Uber and Lyft – rather than work in traditional shops, many find themselves labeled as independent contractors rather than employees. And labor law says working people must share a common employer in order to join together in a union.

Salonek, who works with language interpreters and ESL teachers, said independent contractor status “voids those workers from NLRA rights.” If they want to unionize, they must first get reclassified as employees, “and then the employer knows you want a union before you even start an organizing campaign.”

In response, CWA and other unions are exploring alternative union structures that reflect the way working people built power before the NLRA, Salonek said, including professional associations and guilds that advocate for workers in a specific industry. The throwback model comes with several challenges, though. Laws that prohibit price fixing prevent workers’ associations from setting wage floors, for example.

Unions also are exploring new benefits to membership that might attract independent contractors, freelancers and, in Right to Work states, dues payers. They include health insurance plans for workers who bounce from gig to gig, malpractice insurance, professional development and more.

Building Trades unions offer a glimpse of how unions might enhance their appeal to “gig-economy” workers. “You belong to a union and it helps you train for employment and connect with employers, and it sets some baseline standards in the industry,” Bielski Boris said. “They offer a model where transitional employment is built into the DNA of how they operate.”

Reports of unions’ demise as a share of the workforce also fail to reflect successful organizing taking place outside of traditional collective bargaining, including the Fight for 15 and expansion of worker centers.

In the Twin Cities, the worker center CTUL has given retail janitors and fast-food workers a collective voice on the job. Last year, CTUL’s organizing effort resulted in a new union of workers in an industry – retail cleaning – rife with wage theft, as temp agencies and subcontractors cut corners to provide big-box chains with the lowest bid.

The historic victory provides a glimmer of hope for Bielski Boris that unions might restore more than their Pew survey numbers.

“This is an opportunity to figure out what’s possible for labor,” she said. “If working people can see the value unions play in challenging the system, there’s some hope. But if we allow grief to take hold, we’re most certainly going to end up with the results we fear most.”

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MCAD faculty members unionize; Augsburg adjuncts on track to vote soon

October 19, 2016 by

mcad_thumbnailFaculty at Minneapolis College of Art and Design have voted overwhelmingly to unionize after an organizing drive sponsored by Local 284 of the Service Employees International Union.

The election results were announced this afternoon, just days after adjunct faculty at Augsburg College filed for a union election of their own.

MCAD’s part- and full-time instructors voted separately to form distinct bargaining units, with 64 percent of faculty members voting “yes.”

Negotiations on first contracts for MCAD faculty could begin before year’s end. Faculty members said they looked forward to using their collective voice to advocate for themselves and their students.

“I am thrilled to see such a resounding vote for forming our union amongst both part-time and full-time faculty,” adjunct media instructor Daniel Dean said. “Now, we can work together towards changes that will improve our working conditions as well as our students’ experience.

“As part-time adjunct faculty, we need to know that we will be able to be there for our students when they need us.”

For Augsburg adjuncts, the timeline of their organizing election has yet to be determined, but faculty requested an election by mail ballot in November.

“I want to form an adjunct faculty union at Augsburg because I love teaching here – so much so that I am teaching this semester at a financial loss, as I did over the summer,” adjunct physics instructor Jessica Ennis said. “I have two small children, and I pay more in child care than I make from teaching. This is not sustainable in the long term for my family and me, for my students, or for the Augsburg administration.”

Over 11,000 faculty members nationwide have formed unions with SEIU in the last three years, including adjunct faculty at Hamline University in St. Paul, who voted to join Local 284 in June 2014.

Augsburg adjuncts aren’t the only local faculty poised to vote in an organizing election. Tenure-track and contingent faculty at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities campus have filed for an election, but the university’s administration has bogged down the process with legal appeals.

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