SEIU members strike at five Twin Cities nursing homes

April 20, 2026 by

Workers picket outside The Estates at St. Louis Park on Day 1 of the strike.

Picket lines went up at 7 a.m. today outside five Twin Cities nursing homes, as about 300 union members launched a 72-hour strike for fair wages and respect.

The bargaining units, represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, are in limited negotiations with the employers, under to a wage-reopener clause in their contract. But management has shown no interest in bargaining, union officers say.

“The employer came in with only one number, 2%, and walked out,” Executive Vice President Rasha Ahmad Sharif said during a press conference outside The Estates of St. Louis Park. “That was their last, best and final offer – immediately.”

The union has filed charges of bad-faith bargaining with the National Labor Relations Board.

On the picket line, union members said they felt stung by the employers’ decision to pay high-priced replacement workers from out of state rather than settle a fair wage increase with the workers who provide daily care to their residents.

“We get low pay and heavy, heavy, client (loads),” Juanita Campbell, a licensed practical nurse with 23 years of experience at the St. Louis Park facility, said. “And we don’t have enough staff. They don’t respect us.”

Juanita Campbell said workers’ pay doesn’t match the heavy client load at The Estates, where she has worked for 23 years.

In addition to St. Louis Park, Estates workers are on strike at Roseville, Fridley and Excelsior locations. Union members at Cerenity Senior Care at Humboldt in St. Paul also are on strike.

Striking workers plan to rally at the Capitol on Tuesday and return to their sites for picketing Wednesday. Supporters are welcome.

While employers in the nursing-home industry pinch pennies at the bargaining table, many are also bankrolling two lawsuits seeking to disband the state’s new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board.

“It is frustrating that (employers) seem unwilling to support us while we care for residents,” Jared Mitiga, a registered nurse at St. Louis Park, said. “It felt like they slammed the door shut before we could even get started. It’s especially frustrating that they claim they can’t give wage increases when the industry is spending money on all this other stuff.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Research into union busting in MN nursing homes draws lawmaker scrutiny

April 17, 2026 by

Minnesota nursing home workers attend a Senate Labor Committee hearing on rampant union-busting in the heavily subsidized industry.

Authors of two recently published reports on union busting in Minnesota nursing homes presented their findings to the Senate Labor Committee last week, raising concerns among some lawmakers that public funds are being used to stifle worker voice.

Committee Chair Jen McEwen (D-Duluth) called the new research “kind of a bombshell.” Sen. Sandy Pappas (D-St. Paul) said she was “pretty shocked.”

But the findings came as no surprise to about two dozen nursing home workers in the hearing-room gallery, many of whom had been on the business end of management’s union-avoidance playbook.

Addressing the committee, Cassandra Thomas, a certified nursing assistant at Chapel View Home in Hopkins, described the changes she and her co-workers saw after they petitioned for a union election last year, like town-hall meetings with free food and regular check-ins with an out-of-town consultant.

The message, Thomas said, was clear. “They kept talking about how much the union would cost us,” she said. “But I wondered how much all this cost them, instead of just giving us that raise.”

Chapel View workers won their union election in December, joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa. They are working toward a first contract that delivers that raise – and addresses concerns over staffing, safety and client care that sparked their organizing drive.

But the anti-union campaign left a bitter taste in workers’ mouths – especially after they learned the estimated price tag of Chapel View’s union-avoidance campaign: as much as $400,000, or $2,800 per worker, according to Labor Lab researcher Teke Wiggin, who also addressed the Senate committee.

“It was so frustrating to hear how much they spent to try and stop us,” Thomas told lawmakers. “This all happened while we were working short. They could have spent that money on staff to care for our residents.

“How is this OK?”

Wiggin presented findings from Labor Lab’s new report, “The Price of Repression,” which studied five union-busting campaigns at nursing homes in Minnesota from 2022 to 2025.

The report uses anti-union consultants’ public disclosures, industry billing rates, campaign manuals and independent research to estimate the price tag of those union-busting campaigns, which ran from $140,000 to over $400,000.

Wiggin compared those costs to the amount employers could have spent on wage increases for impacted workers had they recognized the union voluntarily, an amount that ranges from 3.5% to 20% – or $1,400 to $7,300 per worker.

“Our report underscores that when nursing homes really want to find money and resources, they do,” Wiggin told lawmakers.

In a separate report on Minnesota nursing homes, Columbia University researchers surveyed 2,000 certified nursing assistants statewide and uncovered a “pattern of anti-union tactics” in the industry – especially in nursing homes that rely heavily on public funding.

Sociologist Adam Reich, one of six researchers who worked on the Columbia report, walked lawmakers through two case studies of union-busting in Minnesota nursing homes.

The report includes firsthand accounts from workers reacting to their bosses’ anti-union campaign, including misinformation, so-called “captive audience meetings” and, most shockingly, appeals to nursing home residents and their families to encourage caregivers to vote “no.”

At one nonprofit nursing home with a religious affiliation, an administrator leaned on Biblical proverbs to suggest that union organizers were wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“One story that sticks in my mind is a worker whose manager told them that they were going to talk to the pastor of the church they both attended about how this worker was organizing,” Reich said.

Asked by lawmakers what policy recommendations might come out of the two reports, Reich suggested a precise analysis of how nursing homes are using public funds, and whether they are being used to thwart organizing efforts.

“That seems deeply problematic in a state that I know cares deeply about the integrity of public funding,” he said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Report exposes union-busting in Minnesota nursing homes

March 20, 2026 by

Minnesota nursing home workers who don’t have a union on the job have launched a new advocacy group, Nursing Home Workers United. Organizers rallied March 12 in St. Paul before a meeting of the state’s Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board. The new organization formed, in part, as a response to employer groups’ legal effort to disband the board altogether.

Researchers at Columbia University issued a report last week that shines a light on rampant union-busting in Minnesota’s nursing-home industry, particularly in facilities that rely heavily on public subsidies.

The report, “Democracy Denied at the Bedside: Union Avoidance in Minnesota’s Nursing Home Sector,” draws on years of qualitative research and a statewide survey of nearly 2,000 certified nursing assistants to reveal a “pattern of anti-union tactics” in the state’s nursing homes.

Columbia Labor Lab sociologist Adam Reich, one of six researchers who worked on the report, said the team began digging into labor relations in Minnesota’s nursing-home industry shortly after the pandemic, which sparked a surge in union-organizing efforts among health care workers.

In addition to analyzing data – from their CNA survey, from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and from the Minnesota Department of Health – researchers embedded themselves into multiple union organizing efforts from 2021 to 2025.

The report includes firsthand accounts from workers reacting to their bosses’ anti-union campaign, including misinformation, so-called “captive audience meetings” and, most shockingly, appeals to nursing home residents and their families to encourage caregivers to vote “no.”

At one nonprofit nursing home with a religious affiliation, an administrator leaned on Biblical proverbs to suggest that union organizers were wolves in sheep’s clothing.

“One story that sticks in my mind is a worker whose manager told them that they were going to talk to the pastor of the church they both attended about how this worker was organizing,” Reich said.

But the report’s key finding is the crossover between homes that receive public funds and those that run union-avoidance campaigns. It’s already raising questions among unions in the industry about whether public funds are being used to stifle workers’ voices.

Rasha Ahmad Sharif, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa’s executive vice president, said workers deserve answers.

“While not surprising, we are still outraged to see that money that workers have been pushing to go to essential workers caring for Minnesotans is being spent trying to stop workers from forming unions because employers are too scared of their workers practicing their federal rights and gaining the bare minimum that their employers refused to give them,” Ahmad Sharif said.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , ,

Workers call on Fairview, other health systems to adopt best practices for ICE interactions

February 27, 2026 by

Dr. Kaitlin McLean offers a message to community members who have been avoiding health care facilities: “We want you to get the care you need. We are here asking the hospital to support us in caring for you.”

Health care facilities have not been spared the aggressive tactics deployed by federal agents during the recent surge of immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Now, local unions, immigrant-rights groups and lawmakers are demanding health systems adopt new “best practices” to keep patients and workers safe and uphold their rights.

Union nurses, doctors and support staff called a press conference Feb. 20 outside the U of M Medical Center after delivering a list of demands to Fairview, citing unanswered questions and persistent concerns about how the system is navigating the immigration chaos.

Kirby Crow, a Fairview Riverside worker and member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, cataloged a list of incidents workers have witnessed at Fairview facilities, from agents covering up security cameras to verbally and physically intimidating health care workers – even following some to their homes.

“Despite a need for new, improved procedures, Fairview hasn’t offered workers any updated policies in the last few weeks,” Crow said. “So us workers stepped up.”

Workers’ top concern, speakers at the event said, is that community members are foregoing health care to avoid encounters with federal agents.

Kirby Crow, a member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, catalogs the troubling incidents Fairview workers have seen in their facilities since the immigration surge began in late December.

Soon after Operation Metro Surge began in December, workers across the health care industry began sounding the alarm that immigrant patients were avoiding hospitals and clinics, deferring needed care and going without their medications.

“Our No. 1 priority will always be and has always been the safety and well being of our patients,” Dr. Kaitlin McLean, a member of Council of Interns and Residents (CIR-SEIU), said. “It is the hospitals’ job to allow us to do that safely. We need to know that the hospital has our back while we do that important work.”

A coalition of union doctors, nurses and health care workers at Fairview, working with the immigrant-rights group UNIDOS MN, drafted best practices that, they say, would offer assurances to patients fearful of seeking care.

Demands include alerting the public when immigration agents approach a Fairview facility. Workers also want Fairview to provide them with education about patients’ rights under civil detention, and clear protocols to follow when immigration agents arrive at their facilities. That includes requiring agents to sign in, remove any non-medical face coverings and stay out of private or secure areas unless they have a judicial warrant to enter.

“I wish I could tell you with absolute certainty that it is safe for you to leave your home sand come to the hospital,” McLean said. “We want you to get the care you need. We are here asking the hospital to support us in caring for you.”

The proposed best practices also would protect health care workers, barring agents from parking lots, break rooms and other staff spaces and allowing for immediate reassignment from areas immigration agents have entered.

The coalition also wants amendments to Fairview’s attendance policy that would accommodate workers experiencing immigration-related safety or legal emergencies.

“These are phenomenal health care workers that show up every day to serve as a vessel for healing and a helping hand for humanity,” Jamey Sharp, a health care organizer with UNIDOS MN, said.

UNIDOS is organizing with workers in other health care systems, including Hennepin Health Care and North Memorial, to establish strong protocols around immigration enforcement.

“Our goal is simple,” Sharp added. “Hospitals must be places of care, healing and trust – not fear.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

After authorizing strike, SEIU members at HealthPartners celebrate TA

February 5, 2026 by

Workers at HealthPartners clinics across the Twin Cities put their bosses on notice last month that they were willing to strike to defend their industry-leading health benefits. Yesterday their union reached tentative agreement on a new contract that does just that.

If ratified, the three-year contract also will deliver wage increases – 4% in year No. 1 and 3% in the second and third – to nearly 2,000 members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.

“This (tentative agreement) shows what happens when we stand up for workers and patients and allows us to continue to give the exceptional patient care we pride ourselves on giving,” Jean Pfarr, a nurse with 48 years of experience at HealthPartners, said in a statement issued by the union last night.

Members of the bargaining unit work in nearly all facets of care, excluding doctors and dentists, at more than 25 HealthPartners clinics. The unit brings together nurses, dental hygienists, midwives, physicians assistants and lab techs – in total, workers in over 80 different jobs.

Citing a sluggish start to negotiations, the union’s bargaining team took the extraordinary step of calling for a strike vote several weeks before their contract was set to expire Jan. 31. The vote saw support from 99% for a weeklong strike, if necessary

The union followed up its strike vote with pre-dawn informational picketing Jan. 23 – in sub-zero temperatures – outside the HealthPartners Como Clinic.

Union members said they hoped their solidarity would push the employer to improve its wage proposal and drop proposed cuts to their hard-fought health benefits.

“We know these things always go to the last minute,” longtime HealthPartners worker Chris Grimes said. “But it’s time they get serious and get the job done.”

Others warned HealthPartners that changes to its industry-leading insurance plan would hurt the provider’s efforts to recruit and retain workers.

Health coverage was a critical factor in Dr. Beth Smith’s decision to accept a position as a psychotherapist in the system nearly a decade ago. But Smith, a member of the union’s bargaining team, said she was “shocked” to see the out-of-pocket increases the employer brought to the table.

“It is hard for me to think about the negative impact this is going to have on my colleagues, my fellow union members, if these proposed health insurance cost increases go into effect,” Smith said after the strike vote. “Many people choose to work for HealthPartners because of the benefits, just like me.”

HealthPartners got the message. Other highlights of the tentative agreement, according to the union, include:

  • Additional wage increases for registered nurses, certified medical assistants, medical assistants and EMTs.
  • Increased bonuses for members who pick up additional weekend shifts.
  • Stronger non-discrimination language for LGBTQ+ members.
  • A new labor-management committee focused on the impact of artificial intelligence on health care workers.

The union planned a ratification vote in the coming days. Crystal Peterson, a radiologic technologist who served on the bargaining team for the first time, said she was proud of the tentative agreement.

“We fought for everyone in our bargaining unit across all 80-plus job classifications,” Peterson said. “Despite this being just as hard of a fight as we knew it would be, we got a good outcome.”

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

Ellison joins final push for administrative citations in St. Paul

October 30, 2025 by

Attorney General Keith Ellison today joined St. Paul workers, renters, small business owners and community activists making one last appeal for a “yes” vote on administrative citations.

St. Paul currently lacks authority under the city’s charter to enforce labor standards, property codes, renter protections and other ordinances by issuing civil fines. That makes it an outlier among Minnesota’s largest cities.

When local officials have both civil and criminal enforcement options, Ellison said, they are less likely to tap the Attorney General’s Office for assistance, and their low-income residents are less likely to turn to nonprofits for legal aid.

“We’ve had to sue bad landlords all over the state,” Ellison said during a press conference with the Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul campaign outside City Hall. “Every time we do, that means time, money and people, and it means that there’s some other problem that is not being addressed.”

Question 1 on the ballot in the City of St. Paul asks voters whether to amend the charter to allow enforcement of certain ordinances through civil fines, rather than criminal charges.

The proposal emerged from the city’s Charter Commission earlier this year and advanced to the City Council, where it passed unanimously. Mayor Melvin Carter supported the change, but opponents collected enough signatures to put the question before voters Nov. 4.

Labor groups, including the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, have endorsed the “Vote Yes” campaign, arguing the change will allow more efficient and equitable enforcement of labor standards that unions lobbied hard for, including a higher minimum wage and protections against wage theft.

“These ordinances make our city stand out, but, unfortunately, we also stand out for not having a critical tool to enforce them,” Rick Varco, political director of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, said.

Varco pointed to the city’s first major attempt to enforce its ordinance requiring employers to provide earned sick and safe time. The case, filed in 2020, involved about 100 workers at a home health agency who had to wait over four years to get their legally required benefit.

Forcing enforcement into the criminal courts isn’t just impractical, advocates at the press conference said; it also plays into the hands of employers and property owners, with deeper pockets than workers and renters.

“Without administrative citations, the city is left with only two extremes: send a warning letter or pursue a time-consuming, costly criminal case,” Housing Justice Center attorney Jessica Szuminski said. “Predictably, most violations result in no actions at all.”

With a victory for administrative citations Nov. 4, Szuminski added, “tenant protections in St. Paul will finally have teeth, and renters can be assured that their calls for help to the city will mean something.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Unions decry Trump shutdown, urge health care fix

October 21, 2025 by

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa member Tametria Johnson worries about the impact that cuts to Medicaid and expiring ACA subsidies will have on her family.

Using public-service workers as political pawns, President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress allowed the federal government to shut down Oct. 1 rather than negotiate with Senate Democrats over a mounting health care crisis.

As the shutdown extends into a fourth week, over 750,000 federal workers are locked out, furloughed or working without pay.

Trump and administration officials have made no attempt to hide their intent to use federal workers as leverage in the standoff. The president called it an “unprecedented opportunity” to slash payroll, and thousands of workers across multiple federal agencies had received reduction-in-force notices by mid-October.

The administration also floated a memo arguing furloughed workers were not entitled to back pay, flouting a law passed after the government shut down for 35 days in 2019.

Unions, led by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), swiftly challenged both the firings and the memo, winning a temporary restraining order to block the reductions in force and threatening another lawsuit if the administration withholds back pay.

Still, the strain on federal workers and their families increases with each day the shutdown drags on, AFGE District 8 Vice President Ruark Hotopp said. District 8 represents over 19,000 federal workers in Minnesota and four other states.

“To be used as political footballs, to shut down the government and hold us hostage while many of our members are going without a paycheck – in many cases while they still perform their work – it’s just frustrating and maddening,” Hotopp, an immigration officer on leave while he works for his union, said. “People are feeling a lot of anxiety, a lot of uncertainty.

“But it’s par for the course with what we’ve been dealing with since January, with DOGE and (Office of Management and Budget Director) Russ Vought and Elon Musk, and agencies refusing to recognize our union contracts.”

Holding out for health care fix

While AFGE and other federal workers’ unions are calling for an immediate end to the shutdown, other labor unions have ramped up pressure on Trump and Republicans to negotiate a health-care fix with Senate Democrats as part of a spending bill.

Already, hospitals are bracing for a $900 billion cut to Medicaid coverage in the tax and spending bill Trump signed into law July 4, which will force providers to absorb billions in unpaid care costs.

Adding to the crisis, Trump and Republicans are set on allowing some tax credits that help people afford insurance through the Affordable Care Act expire Dec. 31. Over 22 million Americans, access the credits to make their health coverage more affordable.

MNsure, Minnesota’s ACA exchange, noted the impact of the expiring credits as it released rates and coverage options in advance of open enrollment beginning Nov. 1. Nearly 90,000 Minnesotans will pay more for coverage – on average, about $177 more each month – and another 20,000 will lose all financial assistance.

“These cuts would be a snowball that would be awful for so many families,” home care worker Tametria Johnson said during a press conference called by her union, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, on Day 1 of the shutdown.

Johnson works as a caregiver for her developmentally disabled adult daughter, a service reimbursed by Medicaid funding, but she gets her own health coverage through the ACA exchange. She worries her family’s Medicaid benefits are in jeopardy at a time when her premiums are set to increase by over 20%.

“Many of us live paycheck to paycheck,” Johnson said. “When costs go up … something has to go – groceries, medicine, gas to go to work or appointments, utilities, cell phone. It’s very scary.”

Make a deal or take a stand?

Labor leaders and Senate Democrats have acknowledged the tension between fighting to lower health care costs for union members like Johnson and getting federal workers back on the job. But they agree that the blame lands squarely on the White House.

“Our livelihoods should not be used as pawns or bargaining chips, whether it is threatening one set of workers after another, canceling construction projects, or jacking up electricity prices on top of higher health insurance premiums,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler wrote in a letter to Trump sent Oct. 7.

“We implore you to meet with the leaders of the House and Senate to find a solution that funds the government, fixes the health care crisis and puts working people first.”

One thing AFGE’s Hotopp is sure of, he said, is that the Trump administration’s attacks on federal workers won’t end when the government reopens. He recalled the argument that convinced enough Senate Democrats to sign off on a Republican budget the last time Congress reached the brink of a shutdown, in March.

“What we heard then was, ‘We had to make a deal to save your jobs,’” Hotopp said. “Then we watched DOGE rip through our staffing, watched agencies rip away our unions. It didn’t save any jobs.

“To insinuate that if there weren’t a shutdown that they wouldn’t terminate people? That’s simply not the truth.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Union members at No Kings: ‘We have to show solidarity’

October 20, 2025 by

Union members gather outside the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis before walking together to “No Kings.”

At “No Kings” demonstrations across the state Saturday, Minnesotans turned their individual anger over the alarming, anti-democratic trajectory of President Donald Trump’s second term into a collective display of strength, unity and hope.

Many labor unions endorsed “No Kings” events both here and across all 50 states.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest labor federation, teamed with three other groups to organize the peaceful march in Minneapolis that saw thousands clog downtown streets for several blocks Saturday afternoon.

Union members who joined the march cited a wide range of motivating factors. But they agreed that “No Kings” was an opportunity to leverage the power of solidarity against Trump’s far-reaching attacks – on federal workers and their unions, on democracy and the rule of law, on immigrants, on public services, on the LGBTQ+ community and more.

“I could keep going and going,” Education Minnesota Local 2209 member Beth Kowski laughed after beginning to list the concerns that inspired her to march Saturday.

Beth Kowski (L) and Education Minnesota retiree Marsh Jarvela.

Kowski, and educator in Intermediate District 287, joined a pre-march meetup for union members at the United Labor Centre in Minneapolis. After a brief rally, union members walked to “No Kings” together, forming a labor contingent of about 200.

“Unions have a collective power and voice that is crucial at this juncture,” Kowski said. “We have to be together and be firm in our conviction. Silence is complicity.”

AFSCME Local 2864 President Amanda Gustafson, who marched with fellow Hennepin County employees, agreed.

“We have to show solidarity with people who are seeing everything fall apart right now,” Gustafson said. “We see all of the communities that are being attacked, and many of us (in unions) are people who are members of those communities as well.”

That includes union members in the federal workforce. Trump has been attacking their jobs, their union rights and the services they deliver since January.

For Miranda Kiwelu, a program support assistant at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, seeing so many people reject Trump’s agenda at “No Kings” felt “amazing.”

“We definitely have support, but I don’t know that federal employees feel that way now because it’s been nonstop attacks left and right,” said Kiwelu, a member of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1969 who serves as a young-worker coordinator for AFGE District 8.

Union members cross the Third Street bridge together on their way to “No Kings” in Minneapolis.

“No Kings” took place on the 18th day of a government shutdown, which the Trump administration has used as an excuse to continue its attempts – illegally, according to AFGE and several courts – to slash federal payrolls, redirect spending authorized by Congress and inflict pain on Kiwelu and other federal employees.

“By the time this is done, we’re going to have 1.3 million federal employees out of a job or impacted,” she said.

But in extending the shutdown, Trump and Republicans who control Congress are also refusing to address steep cuts to Medicaid and to subsidies that keep health coverage affordable on public exchanges like MNsure.

Health care workers like SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa member Viktor Solberg said they were marching at “No Kings” for themselves and the people who rely on them for care.

“It’s not just our jobs, it’s the ability of our clients to live their lives,” said Solberg, who provides in-home care funded by Medicaid.

“Health care is being cut by billions, and we can’t stand for that,” pharmacy tech Kyle Johnson, also an SEIU member, added. “We’re standing up for our profession and the community at large.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Unions join coalition pushing ‘yes’ vote on administrative citations in St. Paul

September 24, 2025 by

Representatives of labor, faith and community organizations participating in the Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul coalition hold a kickoff event outside City Hall.

St. Paul unions are teaming up with labor and community groups this fall on a campaign to advance administrative citations from the general election ballot to the capital city’s charter.

The Vote Yes for a Fairer St. Paul campaign launched with a press conference outside City Hall on Aug. 27. Leaders of labor and faith groups joined workers and tenants in making the case for a “yes” vote on the ballot question before St. Paul voters this fall.

By passing the initiative, voters would confirm the St. Paul City Council’s unanimous vote last spring amending the charter to allow enforcement of certain ordinances through civil fines, rather than criminal charges.

The proposal emerged from the city’s Charter Commission, which voted overwhelmingly late last year to advance it to the council. But opponents collected enough signatures to put the question before voters Nov. 4.

At the kickoff event, Vote Yes leaders said they’re confident the more people learn about administrative citations, the more likely they are to support them. That means education – through press coverage, community engagement and the campaign’s website – will be key to their success.

“The public doesn’t know a whole lot about this,” Rick Varco, political director of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, acknowledged. “We’re working with community organizations to educate their members and supporters, and we hope people who are looking into what this complex thing is will use those resources to decide to vote ‘yes.’”

Some people, though, are familiar with St. Paul’s inability to enforce ordinances with civil penalties – often because they’ve found themselves waiting on a response to code violations that, in most other cities, would not play out in the criminal-justice system.

Of the state’s 25 largest cities, only St. Paul does not allow for administrative citations.

The city’s police department can issue fines for parking tickets and related violations under state law, and the city can assess fines to recover the cost of some property-related matters, like sidewalk shoveling.

James Blake shares their experience as a renter trying to hold a landlord accountable for unsafe conditions.

But advocates say the city needs more power to take swift action in enforcing labor standards and housing codes, preventing bad employers and corporate landlords from dragging the process out in court.

That’s what recently happened to James Blake after moving into their dream apartment in St. Paul. Blake soon discovered wood rot and mold in the kitchen and a moth infestation in the apartment’s built-in cabinets.

Requests for repairs went unanswered. Blake reported several code violations to the city, which began legal proceedings against the company, but nothing changed, they said, until Blake made the decision to move out four months into their lease.

“The rental company violated multiple deadlines from the city inspectors and even a court order to make repairs,” Blake said. “Watching them face zero consequences left me helpless and exhausted.”

The city’s current structure, advocates say, too often forces renters like Blake – and workers who experience wage theft – to seek relief through the legal system.

“Try to see what kind of lawyer you can hire with my paycheck,” Blake said. “I don’t think I deserve to live with mold, pests and an unusable kitchen because I can’t afford a lawyer.”

Minister JaNaé Bates, co-Executive Director of the progressive faith organization ISAIAH, said administrative citations will make St. Paul a more equitable place to live and work. For residents who commit minor infractions, the change allows them to avoid criminal proceedings, while tenants and workers can leverage real, immediate consequences when powerful bad actors violate their rights.

“Right now, our existing enforcement mechanisms fall hardest on working families and communities of color, while wealthy corporations with deep pockets and legal teams can delay and dodge accountability,” Bates said. “Administrative citations level the playing field.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Unions brace for impact of Medicaid cuts, vow accountability

July 22, 2025 by

Quentin Ocama, a kindergarten teacher at Maxfield Elementary and member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, spoke during the “Stop the Billionaire Giveaway” bus tour stop.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans slashed funding for health care, nutrition programs and public schools, repealed tax incentives that create union construction jobs and authorized adding $3.5 trillion to the national debt – all to pay for a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits corporations and the wealthy.

The tax and spending legislation, signed by the president July 4, did not garner a single Democratic vote, as unions and other progressive groups slammed the bill – arguably the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in U.S. history – as it advanced through the House and Senate.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, head of the nation’s largest labor federation, vowed to continue holding supporters accountable as the so-called big, beautiful bill’s ugly consequences become clearer.

“The AFL-CIO promises to put thousands of people to work canvassing colleagues, friends and families, reminding all, every day, of the Trump-GOP law’s harms,” Shuler said. “Campaigners will beat the drum from now through November 2026, and beyond.”

Union members in the Twin Cities wasted little time in doing just that. Several local unions rallied July 2 in a Minneapolis park, site of a nationwide “Stop the Billionaire Giveaway” bus tour stop.

The tour, sponsored by Fair Share America, aimed to raise awareness of the tax bill and its impact on families, communities and the economy. Health care workers, state employees, public educators and local lawmakers took turns describing the importance of federal funding to their communities and constituents.

“Without Medicaid, I would not be able to survive,” said Ace Taylor, a home care worker whose job caring for her disabled aunt is funded through Medicaid.

Claudia Hochstein, a state employee and member of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, said Medicaid’s burdensome new eligibility requirements serve a “dual goal” of frustrating people into giving up on their benefits – and giving political opponents of Medicaid fodder “to complain about government red tape.”

“They’re trying to break our public systems so they can make money off of privatizing them,” she added.

Accountability was on every speaker’s mind.

Taylor, a member of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, traveled with other Medicaid advocates to Washington D.C. in June to urge representatives not to cut the program. Taylor recalled being told by one Republican congressperson, “You’ll be alright.”

“I guess we’ll just have to be louder,” she said.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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