With workers in mind, St. Paul takes step toward regulating driverless cars

October 22, 2026 by 1 Comment

Twin Cities rideshare driver Abdikani Ali warns that autonomous vehicles would undercut workers in his industry.

At the urging of workers and labor unions, the St. Paul City Council last week put the city on course to regulate autonomous vehicles before companies like Waymo and Tesla’s Robotaxi begin operating here.

The council passed a resolution Oct. 14 directing the Planning Commission to study the issue and send back recommendations for a regulatory framework that protects workers, prioritizes safety and accountability, safeguards people’s privacy and protects public transportation systems.

“We need to understand these impacts for ourselves – not take big tech’s word for it,” Council President Rebecca Noecker, who led efforts to pass the resolution, said at a press conference inside City Hall before the vote.

Already, Waymo vehicles are surveying Minneapolis and St. Paul streets, although human monitors still ride inside. The Google-owned taxi company currently operates in 15 U.S. cities. Tesla robotaxis have gone live in six urban areas.

Uber and Lyft drivers, who recently began organizing a union with Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26, have lobbied city leaders in both Minneapolis and St. Paul to act now, before autonomous vehicles begin commercial operations here, to prevent widespread job losses.

Minnesota’s rideshare industry generates over $500 million in total economic output, generating about $43 million in local and state tax revenues.

If local governments like St. Paul fail to act, Council Member Hwa Jeong Kim said, “hundreds of millions of dollars that today support working families across St. Paul would instead flow to Silicon Valley CEOs.”

Rideshare drivers like Abdikani Ali agreed. Ali supports his family by driving for Uber and Lyft, working as many as 16 hours in a day to make ends meet.

“I don’t want Waymo or Tesla to come into the St. Paul community and take away the jobs that people like me depend on,” Ali said. “I also don’t want the money and wages that we’re (earning) to leave our community and go to companies and corporations run by Elon Musk and Google.”

Council members in Minneapolis last month attempted to protect rideshare drivers’ jobs with an ordinance requiring autonomous vehicles to carry human monitors, but it failed to pass.

The resolution adopted in St. Paul, Noecker said, does not presuppose any policy outcome. Instead, the council is setting in motion a process that will seek answers from the community about what guardrails are appropriate. “The outcome of that could look a lot of different ways,” Noecker said.

The Planning Commission’s work is expected to take six months to a year.

“Our responsibility is to the people of St. Paul, not to these corporations,” Noecker added. “Depending on what our community tells us, there may be guardrails we can put in place that allow these vehicles to operate safely, but we need to do the work first. And we want to do that work now rather than wait until they are literally at our door.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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MSP Airport unions lead march on ICE terminal as labor shows solidarity with Somali community

December 3, 2025 by

Local 17 organizer Geof Paquette speaks to the crowd of activists outside Signature’s terminal at MSP.

One day after the Trump administration announced it would target the local Somali community with immigration raids, two airport unions led a march on the company that operates Minneapolis-St. Paul International’s charter terminal, where local detainees are being flown in shackles to deportation hubs.

More than 200 activists from labor, community and faith groups gathered Dec. 3 at the Terminal 2 light-rail stop and marched together to the Signature Aviation terminal. There they rallied with speeches and chants, and later tied red ribbons of remembrance to the iron fence that separates the terminal from the public road.

Speakers called on local officials, including the Metropolitan Airports Commission, to find ways to stop the deportation flights.

“These deportations create terror in our neighborhoods and are ripping families apart,” said Geof Paquette, an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 17 who works with immigrant workers at MSP’s bars and restaurants. “They do nothing but sow fear and anxiety in our community. We’ve got to demand better.”

Another union speaker, retired airport janitor and Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26 member George Mullin, offered a firsthand account of the squalid, dehumanizing conditions detainees face in the privately owned holding centers to which they are flown from Signature’s terminal.

George Mullin, a retired SEIU member, traveled to deportation hubs in Louisiana earlier this year.

Mullin joined a delegation, sponsored by SEIU, that traveled to remote detention hubs in Louisiana earlier this year. Those sprawling private prisons, like Signature Aviation and the charter airlines that use its terminals to traffic ICE detainees, are “making money off of cruelty,” Mullin said.

“I’m here today because one of the bright spots of our trip to Louisiana was seeing detained women reacting to us for showing up where no one comes,” he said. “They waved like crazy the whole time.

We got to show them that they are not alone. We see them, and we are with them. Today we’re doing the same thing. To our neighbors who are being put on these planes in chains, likely with no idea where they are going, we see you.”

Labor’s leading role in the march on Signature Aviation illustrates how unions here – and across the U.S. – are showing solidarity with immigrant communities under attack, while also working in coalition to defend people’s rights and hold the Trump administration accountable.

Demonstrators tie ribbons to the iron gate outside the Signature terminal.

Local SEIU unions were among those that reacted swiftly after President Trump began spewing hateful rhetoric at Somali immigrants. In a Cabinet meeting, Trump called them “garbage” and said they “contribute nothing” – an insult belied by work local SEIU members do as school employees, health care workers and property-service workers.

“We could not be prouder or luckier to have many Somali Minnesotans as coworkers and courageous leaders in our struggle to end poverty wages for everyone,” Minnesota’s SEIU locals said in a statement. “As usual, Trump is saying things that aren’t true and claiming powers he doesn’t have. We will make sure all our members have the tools they need to protect their rights.”

To that end, the state’s labor movement has been helping stage training sessions in nonviolent, direct action, supporting immigrant-rights and progressive groups as they brace for an increased federal presence in the Twin Cities. The first session in November drew an overflow crowd, prompting the groups to schedule another for Dec. 7.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said that solidarity demands labor mobilize to meet the moment.

“Union members refuse to let anyone, even the President of the United States, divide us based on what we look like, where we were born, or how we pray,” she said. “President Trump and his cronies are hoping that working people will forget that immigrants aren’t standing between us and a better life – billionaires are. We refuse to let them break our solidarity.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Proposal would allow Minnesota Uber, Lyft drivers to unionize

March 10, 2025 by

Dawit Kassa (R) spoke during a Capitol press conference on a bill that would allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize. (SEIU photo)

Two labor-endorsed state lawmakers announced plans last month to introduce legislation that would give drivers in Minnesota the right to unionize and bargain collectively with ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.

Drivers in the Twin Cities have been organizing in recent years to push local and state officials to address low pay, safety concerns and a lack of transparency in their industry. State lawmakers responded last year with a bill establishing a new minimum wage and other guarantees.

But Dawit Kassa, a driver who served on Gov. Tim Walz’s task force to offer recommendations for the new law, said it doesn’t do enough to level the playing field between the ride-hailing companies and their drivers.

“No law is going to address all of the issues we are facing from these companies,” Kassa said. “We need a union. We need a seat at the table so we can ensure this industry works for us.”

Kassa was among roughly 20 Uber and Lyft drivers at a Capitol press conference Feb. 25. Most were wearing the Service Employees union’s trademark purple shirts, and SEIU Local 26 President Greg Nammacher said the union would support any Uber and Lyft drivers looking to organize.

Lead authors Rep. Samakab Hussein (D-St. Paul) and Sen. Zaynab Mohamed (D-Minneapolis) said they are modeling their bills after a historic ballot measure approved by Massachusetts voters in November.

The Massachusetts law establishes a process for drivers to organize a union and, if successful, bargain one contract with all the apps licensed to operate in the state, known as “sectoral bargaining.”

Drivers, like most other workers in the gig economy, are classified by law as independent contractors, making them ineligible to form a union without a special process like the one in Massachusetts.

Under the proposal from Hussein and Mohamed, pro-union drivers would need to sign up at least 25% of the potential bargaining unit – open to anyone who has completed 100 rides in the previous quarter – before contract talks could begin.

Any tentative agreement would need approval from a majority of voting union members and from the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Labor before taking effect.

The proposal also establishes an arbitration process if the union and ride-hailing apps fail to reach an agreement within six months of opening talks.

Hussein said that stories from Uber and Lyft drivers confirmed that they need collective bargaining to address their shared concerns around fare transparency and pay for time spent waiting for a job.

And despite safeguards in the new state law, drivers continue to report being deactivated from their Uber or Lyft accounts – making it impossible for them to work – due to rider feedback, without getting an opportunity to respond in their defense.

“Without a voice, these problems are going to continue to come back to the Legislature,” Local 26’s Nammacher said. “The Legislature does not need to be the HR department for these multimillion-dollar, global corporations like Uber and Lyft,”

“Ride share companies continue to do the bare minimum while making millions,” Hussein added. “It’s time for change.”

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St. Paul lawmaker vows to act on health care for MSP workers if MAC won’t

January 29, 2024 by

State Sen. Erin Murphy spoke during a press conference held by unions at MSP Airport in December.

Airport workers are dialing up the pressure on employers at Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport and the airport’s governing body to do something to make their health insurance more affordable.

Health benefits have been a sticking point in separate negotiations covering two groups of workers at MSP Airport, about 450 airline catering workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 17 and over 1,000 wheelchair agents, cabin cleaners, cart drivers and others represented by Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26.

Membership surveys have shown the overwhelming majority of low-wage airport workers do not access their employer-sponsored health insurance, instead relying on government programs for coverage.

Their unions have been fiercely lobbying the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) in recent years to pass a minimum standard for affordable health insurance that all MSP-based employers would be required to offer.

In a press conference the week before Christmas, union members announced they had gained a powerful ally in the campaign, Assistant Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy (D-St. Paul). If airport leaders and employers fail to act, Murphy said, she will introduce a bill mandating that MSP employers offer affordable health coverage.

“We don’t have the benefit of travel without the people who staff our airports,” Murphy said. “These are physical jobs, where they can be injured in the workplace. They are working in close proximity to other people where they could easily catch something. They need meaningful health care coverage to protect themselves and to protect their families.”

Determining health benefits “is rightfully done at the bargaining table,” Murphy added. But if she and other lawmakers don’t see workers and management reach a negotiated solution, they will look for a legislative fix.

Sheigh Freeberg, secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 17, said most of the union’s members who work in airline catering cannot afford to access employer-provided health insurance.

Sheigh Freeberg, secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 17, welcomed Murphy’s support.

“We’ve pushed employers for affordable health care, and they’ve said no,” Freeberg said. “We’ve pushed the airport council … for affordable health care, and they’ve said no. We are continuing those fights, but we are excited to have state Sen. Erin Murphy … to fix this problem at the state level if those who have the direct power will not.”

MSP Airport workers have succeeded in lobbying the MAC for higher standards in recent years, including a minimum wage above $15 per hour and a mandate requiring employers to offer paid sick days. But union leaders say workers’ lack of access to health coverage remains a stain on MSP Airport’s reputation.

In a recent survey of nearly 300 airport workers from 17 different employers, just 15.2% of workers who reported having health insurance said they access the benefit from their employer.

“The workers who make this an award-winning airport continue to show up day after day, and they will step up and make sure that the (passenger) experience is great, that the spaces are clean and that the food is delivered on time,” Freeberg said. “It is time for those in power to do the same and step up to make sure that these workers have affordable health care. We are not going to stop fighting until they do.”

SEIU Local 26, whose members are employed by MSP subcontractors, remain in contract negotiations. Their contracts were scheduled to expire Jan. 31.

About 450 catering workers based at MSP Airport are covered by nationwide talks between UNITE HERE and SkyChefs that have dragged on for over two years. The talks fall under the jurisdiction of the Railway Labor Act, which severely limits union members’ ability to exert pressure on their employers through a strike.

“Federal law has failed these workers,” Freeberg said. “We’re looking for the MAC to step up and set a minimum standard of health care that is affordable.”

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Retail janitors brace for busy holiday weekend with no holiday pay

November 22, 2023 by

Contracts covering about 8,000 members of SEIU Local 26 will expire this winter. (file photo)

With shoppers are poised to swarm Black Friday sales across the Twin Cities, it means a busy weekend of work for the union members who clean local big-box stores. And they’ll be doing it – on Thursday, anyway – without holiday pay.

That’s something members of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26 intend to address in contract negotiations with cleaning companies, set to begin in the coming weeks, workers said during a virtual press conference yesterday.

“Us working during the holidays, it brings a lot of income to the stores and to our companies, but I wonder why they don’t invest that money in us, the workers,” said Local 26 member Deyanira Rodriguez, a janitor with Carlson Building Maintenance who cleans Target and other stores across the metro.

“We are the ones who are doing the job. We deserve more. That’s the fair thing to do, and we are going to get it.”

Local 26 called the press conference to kick off a contract campaign that will prioritize paid holidays, affordable health insurance and higher wages for about 700 retail cleaning workers in the bargaining unit.

Retail janitors’ hourly wages begin at $14.50. Local 26 President Greg Nammacher said most members of the bargaining unit earn $15 per hour or less, and just 5% can afford to access the employer-sponsored health plan.

“Remember, it is these workers who were in the grocery stores during the pandemic when it was at its worst, when we didn’t even know what it was, cleaning up the discarded masks and gloves,” Nammacher said. “They were called heroes. It is time now to show it.”

Union members will look to build on gains they have made since joining SEIU in 2016, after a historic, six-year organizing campaign facilitated by the Twin Cities worker center CTUL.

Before unionizing, retail janitors’ wages began at just $9.50 per hour, and worker complaints of wage theft – as stores switched cleaning contracts, or as contractors outsourced work to subcontractors – were common.

Now, retail cleaning workers are among nearly 8,000 Local 26 members whose contracts are set to expire this winter. Earlier this year, these retail and office janitors, security officers and airport workers began strategizing together – and with members of other local unions who will be at the bargaining table this winter – about ways to leverage their collective strength for greater gains. The coalition unites about 20,000 union members in the public and private sectors.

“We’re not going to be silent anymore when many of the corporations in Minnesota made record profits during the pandemic,” Nammacher said. “It is time all these workers in these different sectors are able to move forward.”

For Rodriguez, that means being able to enjoy holidays at home with her family without taking a hit on her paycheck, or getting premium pay on the holidays she does have to work.

“One of the things I remember about Christmas when I was a kid, it was so beautiful to welcome Christmas with a very warm hug within our family,” she said. “Now, I would like to be able to offer that to our kids.”

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MSP workers unite to support health care campaign, Delta union drive

December 8, 2022 by

Brahim Kone of SEIU Local 26 leads a rally outside MSP Terminal 2.

Airport workers marched and rallied for health care and union rights outside Terminal 2 in Bloomington today. The action was among dozens staged by airport workers and their unions fighting for safe and stable jobs across the country.

In Minnesota, workers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport used the day of action to advance their campaign for affordable health care.

Dawit Meles, who works for airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs, said he picks up overtime shifts to cover the cost of his individual insurance plan. A more affordable option, he said, would give him more time to spend with his family.

“For my single insurance I pay over $300 a month,” he said. “My wife and kids get their insurance through the state because I can’t afford the (family) insurance LSG Sky Chefs offers.”

Meles’ union, UNITE HERE Local 17, and other unions representing airport workers are pushing the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) to amend the ordinance it passed three years ago increasing MSP’s minimum wage, adding an “hourly health and wellness benefit” to the minimum compensation airport contractors must offer their employees.

State Rep. Kaela Berg, a member of the Flight Attendants union, offers solidarity to workers at the rally.

Earlier this year, unions surveyed nearly 300 MSP service workers from 17 different employers and found that, among workers who had health insurance, just 15.2% reported getting coverage through their employers.

“We know that essential airport workers – often Black, Brown and immigrant workers – make this airport the award-winning airport that it is,” SEIU Local 26 Secretary-Treasurer Brahim Kone said. “But too often to make ends meet they have to struggle, and that’s not right. It’s time for those in power to stand up and do what is right for these workers.”

A MAC commissioner who attended the rally sounded receptive to the idea.

“We will look to this coalition for guidance and support as we move forward to try to solve health care and other issues that are important,” Commissioner Rich Ginsberg said, “because it’s the workers that make the airport work.”

The coalition of airport unions behind the rally also included the Teamsters, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, and the Machinists – three unions that recently announced a coordinated campaign to support workers attempting to unionize Delta Air Lines.

Delta is turning massive profits, and executives like CEO Ed Bastian, whose pay was 26% higher last year than his peers’, are reaping the benefits. But rank-and-file workers like Miles Dousette, who works for Delta Cargo at MSP Airport, are working two jobs to make ends meet.

“We need a union now,” Delta Cargo worker Miles Dousette tells airport workers at the rally.

“There’s no work-life balance,” said Dousette, in his third year with the company. “They say we’re a family. They say they want this to be a career. Then why don’t we get career wages?”

Dousette said workers in his department earn $18 per hour for their first three years, followed by modest annual increases that top out after the 10th year.

“Delta likes to brag about profit sharing, but I worked six days a week for 10 months straight, and I got the same check as everyone else,” Dousette said.

He told workers at the rally that the company is plagued by understaffing, outdated warehouse equipment and executives who turn a deaf ear to workers’ concerns.

“The scheduling is atrocious, and when we ask management to do something about it, we always hear, ‘we can’t’ or ‘we’re working on it,’” he said. “We need a union now.”

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MSP workers unite to push for affordable health benefits

September 12, 2022 by

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar joins union members as they release a report highlighting the need for affordable health insurance at MSP Airport.

Workers who led the successful push for a $15 minimum wage at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport have launched a new campaign for affordable health insurance benefits.

At a press conference inside Terminal 1 today, janitors, gate agents, catering workers and others at the airport explained that, as their hourly wages increase beyond $15 per hour, many in their ranks fear losing eligibility for the government insurance programs on which they rely.

Insurance benefits currently offered by their employers, airport workers said, are unaffordable for most, with high premiums and deductibles.

“It would be too hard because $15 is not enough for me to afford to pay for the insurance,” MSP worker Khadiga Zail said. Managing her diabetes and high blood pressure without coverage, she added, would be impossible. “If I don’t have health insurance, it’s not going to be good for me. I could lose everything.”

Workers want the Metropolitan Airports Commission to amend the ordinance it passed increasing MSP’s minimum wage, adding an “hourly health and wellness benefit” to the minimum compensation airport contractors must offer their employees.

At least one person on the 15-member MAC already supports the idea. Leili Fatehi, who represents Minneapolis residents on the commission, stood alongside airport workers at the press conference.

“Fifteen is not enough for me to afford to pay for the insurance,” MSP worker Khadiga Zail said.

“We here at the MAC can and will do everything that is within our power to address the gaps and disparities that exist in the wages and benefits of our workforce, the majority of whom are people of color or immigrants” Fatehi said. “That is why I am committed to continuing to work with the groups that are here today to find solutions meeting the needs of our workforce, including affordable health care.”

Governing bodies at other U.S. airports have adopted similar requirements, with hourly benefit contributions ranging from $2.39 in Oakland to $9.50 in San Francisco.

Three unions that represent workers at MSP Airport – Teamsters Local 120, Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26 and UNITE HERE Local 17 – released a report today recommending MSP employers “eventually” be required to provide hourly fringe benefits at the same level as federal contractors under the Service Contract Act. The local rate is $4.80 per hour now, and it increases annually with inflation.

The report includes results of a survey of 290 MSP service workers from 17 different employers. Among workers who had coverage at the time of the survey, just 15.2% said they receive benefits from their employer, and 83.3% reported accessing insurance through government programs.

“There should be no reason, when there are record profits for the airlines, that our workers are worried about how they are going to pay for their doctors, or having to come into work sick because they can’t afford to go to the doctor,” said Local 17 President Christa Sarrack said, whose union represents about 1,500 food-service workers at MSP.

The report also highlights the positive impact an affordable-insurance requirement at MSP could have on the Twin Cities’ racial disparities, among the worst of any metro area in the U.S. MSP workers are disproportionately black and foreign-born, with a large population of East African immigrants.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, meanwhile, said the report reinforces her push in Congress to pass the Good Jobs for Good Airports Act, which would require hub airports to ensure workers at their facilities are covered by prevailing wage and provided fringe benefits. The bill has 49 co-sponsors in the House and 12 in the Senate.

“For the last two years we’ve been saying essential workers should be celebrated as heroes,” Omar said. “They have kept our economy going, they’ve kept businesses going and they’ve kept this airport going. It’s imperative that we don’t just say thank you, but we thank them with benefits, with wages and with labor standards.”

Minimum wage at the airport will increase from $15 to $15.19 per hour Jan. 1, 2023.

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AFSCME united for ‘substantive change’ in talks with U

October 18, 2021 by

AFSCME members rally at the U of M Twin Cities campus.

The maroon and gold that typically adorn the University of Minnesota’s campuses have been spiked with AFSCME green this fall, as frontline workers make a public push for higher wages and other demands in contract talks with the school.

Clerical, technical and health care workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have been in bargaining with the university since May. Their previous, two-year contracts expired June 30.

But the slow pace of negotiations has prompted unions to begin putting public pressure on the U to get serious about their demands.

AFSCME members staged rallies on the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses Sept. 22 and, two weeks later, marched on a Board of Regents meeting. Tomorrow, Oct. 19, workers will hold informational picketing from noon to 1 p.m. on the corner of Delaware St SE and Church St SE, near Boynton Health Services.

Union members say they will keep the heat on the university until its words of support for frontline workers translate into real gains at the bargaining table.

“The U is interested in image,” Local 3800 President Cherrene Horazuk said during a rally last month on the steps of Coffman Memorial Union. “U of M AFSCME is interested in substantive change. That’s why we’re here today.”

Demanding pay and respect

Wage raises and “essential pay” are among AFSCME locals’ top demands in bargaining.

All workers deserve wages that keep up with the rising cost of living, the unions say, and workers who kept the university running during the pandemic deserve “tangible appreciation for risking our lives,” said Deb Pavlica, the president of Local 3260 and a nurse at Boynton Health Services.

“The Board of Regents all stayed home safer. President Gable, management, leadership all stayed home safer,” Pavlica said. “But they sent us to the frontline for an extra $16 a day for less than three months…

“We want raises and compensation that acknowledge our sacrifices.”

Beyond higher pay, workers are pushing for contract language that would keep in place remote and flexible work schedules introduced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their demands also include a formal process for appealing management decisions related to remote work.

Diane Blumenfeld, a clerical worker in the university’s dentistry program, said all workers should have the right to “meaningful flexibility” in their work schedule. “During the last year and a half, we have proven that we do not need to be physically in the office to do our jobs well,” she said.

Other AFSCME members at the Sept. 22 rally demanded a more robust Regents Scholarship program for U of M employees. Sarah Vast, a transgender, nonbinary worker, called on the university to do more to make its workplaces “safe, healthy and just for workers of all identities, needs and abilities” and described having to “walk three buildings away to use a restroom that is safe and comfortable.”

Lei Simmons, a clerical worker at Masonic Cancer Research Center and member of Local 3800, demanded the contract reflect a commitment to racial and social justice that goes beyond “diversity training” and begins the work of addressing and eliminating bias.

“The University of Minnesota has a history of turning that blind eye. We have a history of managers rationalizing and justifying behaviors that demean people,” Simmons said. “Each person that is at the university as a student and as a worker has the right to be respected.”

Support and solidarity

University students and non-AFSCME staff joined the rally in support of the workers’ contract campaign. Members of other unions – including the Communications Workers (CWA), Service Employees (SEIU) and Education Minnesota – also showed their solidarity.

“We support the workers here fighting for what’s right,” CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson said. “No business as usual until there’s justice for the workers.”

Greg Namacher, president of SEIU Local 26, noted that U of M AFSCME members supported janitors when they went on strike in February 2020.

“It is critical that we stand with each other when we’re fighting for what’s right, especially in this moment,” he said. “It is also critical that we stand together to push the university to be an engine of economic and racial justice – and not an impediment to it.”

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Essential workers tell lawmakers: Minnesotans support emergency leave

June 17, 2021 by

Bill Schwandt, an paraprofessional educator in the Bloomington schools, speaks at a press conference in support of emergency paid leave for essential workers.

Thousands of essential workers in Minnesota have lost hours or exhausted their paid time off after being exposed to the coronavirus over the past 15 months, while a measure that would make them whole remains caught up in Capitol gridlock.

That needs to change, according to more than 5,000 nurses, janitors, educators, child care workers and other Minnesotans who signed onto a petition in support of the Essential Workers Emergency Leave Act.

Union members delivered the petitions to Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders today after holding a press conference on the Capitol steps.

“We deserve more than nice words, pats on the back and hearty handshakes,” said Bill Schwandt, a paraprofessional in the Bloomington schools and member of Education Minnesota. “We deserve to be remembered, respected and, yes, compensated for the work that we did.”

Lawmakers are scrambling to negotiate the particulars of a $52 billion, two-year budget by the end of the month. The budget taps into federal relief funds that, as several workers pointed out, should prioritize support for essential workers, according to guidance from the Department of Treasury.

Emergency leave for time lost would help workers like Eva Lopez, a local janitor, regain their footing. Lopez is vice president of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 26, which represents janitors and security guards in the Twin Cities, and she said over 1,000 members of her union have missed work to quarantine or wait for test results.

“Most don’t make enough to have big savings accounts, and we can never work from home,” Lopez said via a translator. “This year has been so hard.”

Minnesota Nurses Association President Mary Turner, an intensive care nurse at North Memorial hospital in Robbinsdale, said members of her union have “dipped into their savings, their retirement, their 401(k)” plans to pay their bills while riding out quarantine.

The financial strain many health care workers are facing, Turner added, has only added to the stress of providing care through a crisis that has resulted in over 7,500 deaths statewide.

“We aren’t asking for a handout,” Turner said. “What we are asking for is justice.”

Turner and Troy Bowman, a Minneapolis custodian who had to quarantine twice in the last year, delivered copies of the petition to Walz, who has pledged support for the measure, and Sen. Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul), a lead author of the bill.

The DFL-controlled House included funding for emergency leave in its jobs bill last month, but Republicans in control of the Senate did not. Murphy, a registered nurse, promised to bring the petition to Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka’s attention, and thanked essential workers for their service to Minnesota during the pandemic.

“You went to work, you took care of us, you kept us alive, you kept us healthy and you kept our economy going,” she said.

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Victory at MSP, as workers win $15 after long campaign

October 19, 2020 by

MSP Airport workers march outside Terminal 1 during a 2018 demonstration in support of a $15 airport-wide minimum wage.

The working people who keep Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport running, who keep it clean and who have made it safe for travelers during the COVID-19 crisis are about to get a well-deserved raise.

Members of the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) voted unanimously today to put the airport on track to a $15 minimum wage. The wage increase will start on Jan. 1, 2021, and be phased in over the next two years.

Airport workers, including members of UNITE HERE Local 17, Teamsters Local 120 and SEIU Local 26, have been pushing for a wage increase for years. Many currently make just $11 per hour, the current airport minimum wage.

The wage hike will put the workforce, predominantly immigrants and people of color, on equal footing with workers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where $15 minimum wage ordinances are on the books.

In a virtual press conference earlier this month, after commissioners signaled support for the measure, Local 120 member Michael Bardenpratt, who has worked at Swissport Fueling for 22 years, gave credit to workers who had the courage to tell their stories at MAC meetings and public demonstrations, putting a public face on poverty wages at the airport.

“Anybody that works 40 hours a week should not have to live in poverty,” Bardenpratt said. “This increase could help working people get off of government assistance, lower their dependence on food shelves, reduce the stress of wondering whether or not they’re going to have enough money for rent, food, a vehicle. It’s going to give families better lives.”

Other workers, while relieved to see $15 move forward, pledged to continue fighting for more.

Glen Brown, a wheelchair attendant at MSP for the last five years and member of Local 26, said he found it hard to celebrate the wage increase in light of the risks he and other airport workers continue to face during the pandemic.

“I’m glad this is finally happening; I’m proud of everyone who’s been fighting for this change for so long,” Brown said.

“But when this ordinance passes and we get a higher wage, it still doesn’t match the risk. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic. To overlook that, it just isn’t fair.”

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