‘Shared passion for community’ drives union campaign at Twin Cities climbing gyms

August 28, 2026 by

Bouldering Project workers formed a union with Workers United, an SEIU affiliate.

After a meeting with the CEO left more questions than answers, workers at two Bouldering Project gyms in the Twin Cities moved quickly to organize a union.

Workers voted to 79-7 to form a bargaining unit with Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees (SEIU), in a landslide election Aug. 6 overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.

The new unit brings together 117 workers at the St. Paul and Minneapolis climbing gyms, from climbing supervisors and youth programming staff to front-desk and maintenance workers.

The climbing industry has expanded steadily over the past decade, and with projections to continue growing, the industry is attracting outside investment, including from private equity.

Climbing workers, in turn, have been forming unions to protect their voice as the industry changes. Vertical Endeavors workers in the Twin Cities unionized in 2023 with the United Food and Commercial Workers. Bouldering Project gyms in Brooklyn and Boston saw successful union drives over the last year, and Workers United represents staff at over 30 climbing gyms nationwide.

The organizing bug reached Bouldering Project’s Twin Cities gym via an unlikely source: a gym member who traveled to Brooklyn and, by coincidence, met Bouldering Project workers there who had recently unionized. The member connected the Brooklyn worker with a Minneapolis worker after returning home.

From there, the campaign took shape, tapping into a growing sense that the culture at Bouldering Project was changing, according to Arrow Shipp, a supervisor in the St. Paul gym entering their fourth year on the Bouldering Project staff. Shipp said some workers trace the shift to a round of private-equity investment after the COVID pandemic.

“Part of the reason people want to be at the Minneapolis Bouldering Project is the community they’ve built – the vibes, the inclusivity, being local at the core,” Shipp said. “I think a lot of people were feeling like we’re pushing promos for new members more than we are building community with current members. We’re losing those core values that the company claims, and I think people were getting tired of the energy.”

Soon after organizing began, Bouldering Project CEO Trever Ackerman announced plans to hold town-hall meetings with workers across the U.S. When Ackerman came to the Twin Cities, workers – some involved in the not-yet-public union drive and some not – were ready with direct questions, expecting a give-and-take dialogue, Shipp said.

That wasn’t what they got.

“It felt very performative,” Shipp said. “We asked Trever questions directly, and he kind of danced around the answers.”

Ackerman asked for more time to process workers’ concerns and pledged to respond. That response came June 1 with a letter announcing wage rates would increase by 1% to 5% for nine Twin Cities positions, including six non-management roles.

But Front-desk workers like Shipp were excluded from the raises. Some workers Shipp talked to reported seeing raises of 13 to 25 cents per hour.

“Those raises felt kind of like a slap in the face,” Shipp said. “They weren’t hearing us; they were trying to appease us.”

Now that they’ve unionized, Twin Cities workers will look to address their issues with a seat at the bargaining table.

Priorities for a first contract, according to the union, will likely include job security and pay. The wages of some full-time workers are low enough that they could qualify for public assistance.

Shipp, 27, said the organizing process has deepened connections between co-workers, many of whom have never been members of a union before.

“We learned that we have a shared passion for community and the fight for workers’ rights,” Shipp said. “Spending time talking about that and getting together to work toward this common goal was really incredible.

“Sometimes society feels like it’s in a really tough spot right now. It’s so cool to have people come together and support each other.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Feds spied on local unions during Operation Metro Surge

August 27, 2026 by

Communications Workers (CWA) Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson speaks during a demonstration outside Target’s corporate offices in Minneapolis. Federal agents issued administrative summons to obtain information on the union’s recent political spending.

Minnesota’s largest labor federation accused the Trump administration of “bringing back McCarthyism” after court filings exposed wide-reaching federal surveillance of local unions during the deadly and chaotic immigration dragnet last winter.

While purportedly investigating a criminal conspiracy to impede Operation Metro Surge, Department of Homeland Security agents infiltrated a meeting at the United Labor Center in Minneapolis, demanded one local union’s transaction log from U.S. Bank and dug into the political spending of another.

DHS investigators dubbed the spying campaign “Operation Puppet Master.”

Undercover agents, posing as protesters, also surveilled meetings at churches, parks, libraries and schools, “at times working to entice people into discussing or committing crimes,” according to court documents filed Aug. 13 by an attorney for one of 15 Minnesota protesters facing federal charges stemming from Metro Surge protests.

The filings also unearthed a diagram produced by DHS to show 18 organizations allegedly leading “The Conspiracy.” They include the Minnesota AFL-CIO, the Service Employees, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE).

Attorney Kevin Riach, who filed the motion, said DHS investigators “conjured up a vast and irrational conspiracy” without any criminal predicate.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham and other labor leaders called it an attempt to criminalize dissent.

“The Minnesota AFL-CIO and several of our affiliated unions are being targeted simply because our state’s labor movement stood in solidarity with our immigrant union members and neighbors when our state was under siege this past winter,” Burnham said.

“Minnesotans and most people across our country have rejected this administration’s attempts to demonize immigrants. They are now bringing back McCarthyism to paint unions and organizations that advocate for workers and families as threats to the nation.”

MAPE member Alec Stewart, one of 15 ICE protesters facing charges, says DHS surveilled unions “because our community connections and solidarity were so effective.”

The motion for discovery exposing the surveillance measures used here last winter seeks to compel DHS to provide a fuller picture of how its agents spied on Minnesota unions, nonprofits and activists.

Riach filed the motion earlier this month on behalf of Isaac Sant, one of 15 Minnesotans, including some union members, charged in June with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer as part of a coordinated Justice Department operation. Sant also faces interstate stalking charges for allegedly following an ICE vehicle to Hudson, Wis.

Unions and civil rights groups roundly condemned the charges.

In a public statement, 50 organizations accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the Justice Department to punish a few activists for a historic campaign of popular resistance to Metro Surge.

The statement, signed by the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Education Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association and 13 other union groups, decries that the charges come from “the very same (agency) that refuses to investigate or press charges in the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.”

The 15 protesters charged were among thousands of Minnesotans who rose up to defend their neighbors – tracking ICE agents, alerting communities to their presence, documenting their actions and demonstrating in the streets.

Organized labor lent critical support to those efforts – and federal agents clearly took notice, MAPE member Alec Stewart, one of the activists facing charges, said.

Stewart, a forestry worker for the State of Minnesota, joined a press conference last month outside Target headquarters in downtown Minneapolis, where labor, faith and immigrant organizations called on Minnesota’s large companies to publicly reject political surveillance and retaliation.

“The revelation of Operation Puppet Master exposes that while the government was targeting immigrant communities, tearing families apart, abducting children and murdering folks in the street, they were also attempting to disrupt and dismantle one of the facets of Minnesota that makes us so unique,” Stewart said. “That is our strong and unified labor movement.

“They were doing this simply because our connections and our community solidarity were so effective.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Providers at Allina clinics, urgent cares plan one-day strike Nov. 5

October 24, 2025 by

Allina doctors held informational picketing outside the West St. Paul clinic in June 2025.

The union of over 600 primary care providers at Allina Health clinics and urgent cares will hold a historic, one-day strike Nov. 5 unless negotiators make significant progress in two bargaining sessions scheduled before then.

The strike would be the largest among private practitioners in U.S. history, according to Doctors Council – SEIU. It would impact services at 61 facilities across the Twin Cities area.

In a press call today, union leaders said Allina’s refusal even to bargain over several of their members’ key demands – pay and benefit guarantees, enough time to deliver quality care, adequate staffing levels in their clinics – drove the decision to call a strike.

“If we don’t do this, we’re looking at taking what Allina is offering,” Dr. Matt Hoffman, a family doctor at the Vadnais Heights clinic, said. “If we do that, we are going to see primary care continue to get worse at Allina.

“We love being doctors. We love caring for our patients. But we have seen so many of our colleagues leave primary care, so many burn out… We cannot let that cycle continue.”

Union members voted in June to authorize their elected leaders to call a strike if necessary, with over 90% support. In conversations since, Hoffman said, a “very strong majority” of members have pledged to honor the picket line.

“A lot of us are just at our breaking points collectively, and we feel like we have done everything we can to avoid getting to this point,” Dr. Nick VenOsdel, a pediatrician at the Hastings clinic, said. “The time to fight is now.”

The bargaining unit brings together doctors, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners who voted overwhelmingly to unionize with Doctors Council – SEIU in October 2023.

Since bargaining over a first contract began in February 2024, the two sides have met over 60 times and reached tentative agreements on scheduling procedures, a new mentorship program and labor-management committee, discipline language and safety protections.

But providers say they won’t settle for a contract that fails to address the factors behind increased burnout in their ranks, and they won’t go backwards economically while Allina’s executive pay continues to soar.

Union members want protected time to devote to administrative tasks, training, communication and other responsibilities, so that they don’t come at a cost to quality care in the exam room. Providers are increasingly handling those tasks after work hours – in “pajama time,” Dr. Cora Walsh said.

“There’s not been a real recognition of how our work has ballooned over the last decade,” the West St. Paul provider added.

Doctors are also fighting for contract language that would ensure minimum staffing levels in their facilities – not only for themselves, but also for clinical assistants, nurses, lab workers and other positions outside their bargaining unit.

Allina recently sold off its lab facilities and cut X-ray services, and its plan to close four clinics Nov. 1 has already begun further straining the system – and patient care, Walsh said.

“We know what it takes to make primary care sustainable and provide the quality care our patients deserve,” Walsh said. “This is what we’re fighting for at the bargaining table.”

Barring a breakthrough in talks, Doctors Council plans to begin striking at 7 a.m. Nov. 5 and return to work at 7 a.m. the following day. The union will drive turnout to picket lines at three clinics: West St. Paul, Richfield and Coon Rapids.

“We do not want to be away from caring for our patients, to put our patients in that position,” Walsh said. “But this is what Allina has forced us to do to be sure Allina will be there for our patients.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Workers strike at South St. Paul tannery that supplies Red Wing Shoes

October 16, 2025 by

Striking members of Workers United Local 150 walk the picket line at Twin City Tanning.

About 65 workers at a tannery in South St. Paul that supplies leather for Red Wing Shoes are in the second week of a strike for higher wages.

Members of Workers United Local 150 walked off the job Oct. 9, accusing their employer, Twin City Tanning, of refusing to bargain in good faith. The union’s previous contract expired earlier in the month after workers agreed to a temporary extension.

The two sides met with a state mediator Oct. 14 but failed to reach an agreement. Local 150 representative Esau Chavez said another session was scheduled for Friday, Oct. 17.

Picket lines will remain up from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day except Sunday until the strike ends. The union welcomes community support on the line, located at 501 Malden St. in South St. Paul.

[Click here to sign a petition to Red Wing Shoes demanding support for striking workers.]

Bargaining began in late August, and Chavez said union members presented their full proposal at the first meeting. But Twin City Tanning failed to respond until a third session in September.

That response was an insult: raises of 25 cents per hour in the contract’s first year, 15 cents in the second and 10 cents in both the third and fourth. Union members entered bargaining with a demand of $3-per-hour raises, plus an increase to the regular bonus workers receive for perfect attendance.

Both sides moved some in sessions that followed, Chavez said, but workers voted down the employer’s last, best and final offer, with annual raises that averaged 80 cents over a three-year deal.

“We think we made a modest, fair proposal given the hard work that’s done here and the inflation we’ve seen since our last contract,” Chavez said. “These guys deal with chemicals, toxins, cow hides. It’s not easy work.”

The union, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, was picketing from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day except Tuesday and Sunday.

Rallies on the picket line drew support from elected officials in the area and members of other unions, including United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, which represents workers at Red Wing Shoes. Local 1189 had advised its members to honor Twin City Tanning workers’ picket line.

Twin City Tanning has been a union shop since 1990.

On the picket line, workers said plant management had turned over since the last round of contract negotiations. Mark Aufderhar, who has about 10 years of experience at Twin City Tanning, said the new plant manager may be “looking to make a name for himself by saving money.”

Aufderhar said he’s seen a similar approach – alarmingly – in his role on the facility’s safety committee. After a chunk of concrete fell onto the shop floor, he alerted the safety manager, but all the manager could do, Aufderhar said, “is write an email to the higher-ups just to cover their butt.”

“They just don’t want to spend the money on fixing these things,” he added. “This round of negotiations, it’s the same thing. It’s way different than the one before. It’s bad.”

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Twin City Tanning $1,920 for a “serious” citation in July.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

HealthPartners workers strike at Stillwater Medical Group

July 8, 2025 by

SEIU bargaining team members Heather Eggers (L) and Ellie Conway lead a rally on the picket line at Stillwater Medical Group.

United “like never before,” a bargaining unit of 80 workers at HealthPartners Stillwater Medical Group began a four-day strike this morning, escalating their campaign for a new union contract that delivers wage gains and longevity bonuses.

Members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa on strike at SMG include licensed practical nurses, certified medical assistants and other workers in the facility’s family-medicine, OB/GYN, pediatrics and specialties departments.

On the picket line, union members said they felt stung by HealthPartners’ decision to fork over money to temporary workers and pay overtime wages, rather than meet their bargaining team halfway and avoid a strike.

Workers voted last month, with near-unanimous support, to authorize a strike. In talks since then, the employer “has barely moved in their proposals,” LPN and bargaining team member Kelly Parent said.

“We tried to come down with our numbers,” CMA Ellie Conway, another member of the bargaining team, added. “Unfortunately, they didn’t reciprocate.”

Heather Eggers, a CMA and union negotiator, said SMG workers have taken on more responsibilities in recent years, as the facility struggled with short staffing. She said HealthPartners needs to offer more than just a “thank you.”

“The cost of living is rising, and we need HealthPartners to step up,” Eggers said. “They keep saying we are working together for the common good. If that’s the case, then why isn’t our leadership working for us, the workers?”

Workers walk the picket line at HealthPartners Stillwater Medical Group.

Although SMG is under the HealthPartners umbrella, workers’ wages and benefits lag behind those earned by many of their peers in the system. SMG workers bargain on their own, outside a larger SEIU contract that covers over two dozen HealthPartners sites in the metro.

“We’re doing the same work for the same company,” said Conway, who has worked at SMG for over five years. “We believe we deserve the same wages and bonuses.”

SMG workers don’t expect to make up the difference with one contract, but Conway said they intend to do better than the “chump change” in HealthPartners’ most recent proposal, which amounts to raises of less than $1 per hour for many in the bargaining unit.

“We refuse to accept that this is the best HealthPartners has to offer us,” she said. “It feels like the money makes its way to corporate leadership but skips right past the front line.”

The unit came into contract negotiations this spring fired up, having beat back an attempt to decertify their union just weeks before bargaining began. Workers voted to keep their union, with 72% support.

“The employer was very vocal in the decertification about how they could work with us so much better without a union,” Conway said. “Fortunately, the members saw through those empty promises.

“Like never before, our union is ready to stand together and demand better working conditions.”

Union members plan to picket from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day of the strike, scheduled to end Friday. SMG is located at 1500 Curve Crest Blvd.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Seeking ‘strength in numbers,’ Roseville baristas vote to join Starbucks union

March 19, 2025 by

Starbucks workers showed off their union petition outside the Roseville location. (SWU photo)

Baristas at two Starbucks cafés on opposite sides of Highway 36 in Roseville are now part of the same union.

In balloting overseen by the National Labor Relations Board on March 6, workers at the Starbucks south of Highway 36 and Fairview Avenue voted 16-3 to join Starbucks Workers United, which represents over 10,500 workers across the U.S.

Baristas formally requested union representation Feb. 3, less than 2 months after a worker from the Starbucks north of the interchange – unionized since August 2022 – picked up a “borrowed shift” at their café, according to Andraya Skelley, who has five years of experience working for the company.

“He talked to a few of my co-workers that night, and then they brought it to me,” Skelley said. “They were like, ‘Hey, you’re someone who’s been here for a long time. What do you think of us unionizing?’”

Skelley said she and other baristas had previously considered the idea, but momentum “fizzled out” after they watched the company illegally retaliate against the first wave of workers who unionized, withholding their raises, denying them credit-card tips and firing several union organizers.

The company was also slow to engage its workers in contract talks. When Starbucks finally agreed to bargain in 2023, its representatives stonewalled union negotiators in Minnesota and around the country, walking out of over 100 meetings shortly after they began.

But in February 2024, Workers United secured an agreement with Starbucks that expanded credit-card tipping and raises to its unionized locations, and laid out a timetable for negotiations on a framework for bargaining single-store contracts. In January the two sides enlisted the help of a mediator in that process.

Baristas at her Starbucks location, Skelley said, hope their overwhelming vote to join Workers United lends strength to the union in those negotiations.

“There’s strength in numbers,” she said. “The more stores that do unionize, the more Starbucks has to listen. The more the numbers keep going up, it becomes harder and harder to ignore.”

When the time comes to bargain a contract in Roseville, workers hope to address concerns around scheduling and wages. Skelley said that understaffing at the café, particularly during the midday shift or when a team member calls in sick, too often leaves baristas feeling “overextended.”

“I value this job, and I love interacting with the customers,” she said. “On a good day, it feels really good, and I hate how many bad days there’s been lately due to staffing issues. It feels like we don’t have enough support from upper management.”

Not surprisingly, upper managers gave their store plenty of attention in the runup to workers’ union election.

“We had our district manager in all the time; she was really up in our space,” Skelley said. “I wouldn’t say there was super obvious backlash, but it was kind of funny. She would ask if you have any questions, and we were just like, ‘Cool, thanks, I’ll let you know.’”

The newly organized Starbucks in Roseville brings the number unionized cafés in Minnesota up to 13.

Workers at the Starbucks on Snelling and Stanford avenues in St. Paul were the first to win a union election, in April 2022. Other unionized locations include Starbucks in Chanhassen, Duluth, Edina, Fridley, Mall of America, Minneapolis, Moorhead, St. Anthony and St. Cloud, where workers took a vote Feb. 25.

Workers at a 14th Minnesota location, in Sartell, are scheduled to hold a union vote April 7.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Unions to stay vigilant at Capitol: ‘What we’ve got can go away in a vote’s notice’

February 23, 2024 by

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham spoke at a rally outside a business lobby event on the opening day of the 2024 legislative session.

Minnesota’s unions will approach the 2024 state legislative session looking to expand on – and defend – the historic package of labor standards and public investments passed by DFL lawmakers last year.

Legislators returned to St. Paul on Feb. 12. Before their deadline to adjourn May 20, they are sure to hear from union members pressing for action on a range of issues, including infrastructure investments, pension adjustments, protections for health care and railroad workers and more.

Of course, union members and their allies won’t be the only voices lawmakers hear from at the Capitol this spring. On Day 1 of the new session, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce hosted a reception with legislators at River Centre in downtown St. Paul. The event’s theme was “Restore the Balance.”

To union members like Jake Anderson, a special education teacher in the St. Paul Public Schools, that sounded like going backwards – “and we are not going backwards,” he said at a rally outside the event.

“We won a lot of things last time around,” Anderson, a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, said. “Our kids get free school lunch. We get unemployment for our paraeducators. But it’s not enough, it’s just the beginning.”

Kelly Gibbons, executive director of Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284, said 18,000 education support professionals accessed unemployment insurance last summer, after legislation passed to make hourly school employees eligible for the benefit. She said union members have told her that “unemployment insurance has changed their lives.”

“They’re going to talk about going back to the system that was rigged against us, the workers,” Gibbons said of the Chamber. “They want it to go back in their favor, and we’re here to say absolutely not.”

The state’s largest labor federation, the Minnesota AFL-CIO, last month identified its top priorities for the session, and defending the gains made in 2023 is at the top of the list.

Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said the federation developed its priorities through conversations with affiliate unions and labor leaders.

“First and foremost, we’ve got to protect the things we’ve got,” Burnham said. “We’re going to be working to make sure that paid family and medical leave and union rights – all of that and more – stay in place. What we’ve got can go away in a vote’s notice.”

Burnham said it’s an indication of just how much work lawmakers did on labor issues last year that there are few holdovers from 2023 on the federation’s list of legislative priorities.

Along with paid family leave and unemployment for school employees, union-backed measures to expand earned sick and safe time benefits, ban captive audience meetings, raise safety standards in refineries and give public-sector unions more bargaining rights all became law, not to mention historic one-time investments in public schools and infrastructure jobs.

Still, there are policy measures the state AFL-CIO will work to advance in 2024, including a crackdown on employers who misclassify their workers as independent contractors. Unions have long said the practice is alarmingly common in the nonunion construction industry, but it also applies to the gig economy, advocates say.

Unions want to see legislators put teeth into the state’s existing misclassification laws this session. When workers are misclassified, Burnham said, “they lose out on minimum wage, they lose out on benefits like workers’ comp and overtime pay.”

The federation also plans to lobby for extending unemployment insurance to workers who are on strike. Such a law would level the playing field in collective bargaining, Burnham said, noting that employers can replace striking workers, cut off their health care and stall negotiations.

“There is so much action right now among people who are fighting to do better on the job,” she said. “If they have to go on strike, how are they going to make ends meet?

“If we are going to continue in Minnesota with all the good things we got last year, why wouldn’t we go that next step further?”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Allina Health clinicians file for union election

August 11, 2023 by

Doctors and advanced practice providers (APPs) at Allina Health primary and urgent-care clinics filed for a union election this week, seeking to become the nation’s largest union of private-sector clinicians.

The election would cover about 550 clinicians working in over 50 facilities across the region, according to organizers with Doctors Council SEIU, Local 10MD.

Physicians and APPs, who are not physicians but perform many of the same duties, said in a press release issued today that they are unionizing to gain more say over their working conditions, which right now are dragging down “patient care, professional practice and personal well-being.”

“As health care providers, we are committed to delivering the highest quality care to our patients, but we cannot do that when we are overworked, understaffed and unsupported,” Dr. Matt Hoffman, a physician at Allina’s Vadnais Heights clinic, said. “By forming a union with Doctors Council SEIU, we can better advocate for the resources and support we need to provide safe, effective and compassionate care to our patients.”

The decision to unionize, according to organizers, came after months of discussions among Allina health care providers about common concerns like safety, moral injury and eroding professional agency. Dr. Katherine Oyster, who practices family medicine in Cottage Grove, said the goal is a more collaborative, sustainable health system.

“Voting to unionize gives us in primary and urgent care the opportunity to, en bloc, work collaboratively with Allina leadership to re-center our patients as the focus of our work,” Oyster said. “It would give us a seat at the table where practice-changing decisions are made so we can properly advocate for the needs of our patients. It gives us an opportunity to decrease provider burnout/moral injury with the ultimate goal of keeping us happily providing care with Allina for many years to come.”

If the National Labor Relations Board grants their petition for an election, Allina primary and urgent-care clinicians will become the second group that includes Allina physicians to vote on union representation this year.

Mercy Hospital physicians voted in March to join the Doctors Council, but Allina challenged the eligibility of some employees for the bargaining unit. The NLRB has yet to rule on the appeal.

Meanwhile, nearly 800 frontline workers across Allina’s hospital operations in the Twin Cities – lab technicians, nursing assistants, dietary aides, mental health workers and dozens of other classifications – have joined SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa in the last two years. And nurses at Mercy Hospital’s sexual assault unit recently filed for a union election with the Minnesota Nurses Association.

In addition to its track record of rocky labor relations, Allina has come under scrutiny after a New York Times investigation revealed that the provider routinely denied non-emergency care to patients with higher levels of medical debt, raising ethics concerns.

Among their reasons for seeking a union, Allina clinicians cited “moral injury caused by the pressure to prioritize productivity and profit over patient needs and values and from a lack of support and resources to provide high-quality care.” The list also included:

  • Patient safety concerns due to understaffing and inadequate resources.
  • Limited input and decision-making power in matters affecting patient care, provider safety and professional autonomy.
  • The erosion of the clinician-led model of care and the threat of corporate influence on medical decision-making.

Doctors Council SEIU, which represents thousands of health care providers across the U.S., said Allina clinicians plan to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. Wednesday outside Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

“We believe that every health care provider deserves a safe and supportive workplace where they can provide the best possible care to their patients,” said Dr. Frances Quee, president of Doctors Council SEIU. “By joining together in a union, these health care providers can have the power and resources they need to make real improvements in their workplace and for their patients.”

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

SEIU pulls MN lawmaker’s endorsement over union busting at Planned Parenthood

July 7, 2023 by

(SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa photo)

Planned Parenthood workers this week pledged to continue fighting back against an intimidation campaign targeting elected union leaders at the reproductive health organization’s North Central States chapter.

Meanwhile, the Service Employees (SEIU) union announced it had rescinded its endorsement of the Minnesota legislator who serves as the nonprofit’s CEO. 

Over 440 employees of Planned Parenthood North Central States (PPNCS) voted to form a union with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa in July 2022, and they have been in contract negotiations with management for about eight months. 

While the two sides have made some progress toward a first contract, members of the union’s bargaining team allege that, away from negotiations, they have come under heightened scrutiny from management, resulting in excessive and unwarranted disciplinary measures.  

In February, management placed “final warning” notices in all of the bargaining team members’ personnel files, and in March PPNCS used that warning to fire one member, Grace Larson. 

Now, half of the 14 workers originally elected to serve on the bargaining committee have stepped down or no longer work at PPNCS, union leaders said during a virtual press conference yesterday. Those who remain said they fear a misstep as minor as a time card infraction will cost them their jobs. 

“I fear losing my job and being unable to pay my bills,” PPNCS researcher Shay Gingras said. “And I will continue to hold this fear for as long as I am a PPNCS employee and the final warning remains in my file.  

“I joined the process in order to make a positive difference in the lives of PPNCS employees and patients, and I feel as if I am being punished for this work.” 

The union has filed charges against PPNCS with the National Labor Relations Board. SEIU members and staff, meanwhile, have attempted discussions with management, including CEO Ruth Richardson, a DFL state representative from Mendota Heights, about the chilling effects of targeting union leaders, particularly during negotiations. 

But PPNCS has refused to pull back the final warnings or reinstate Larson, who was fired for sending an email from her private address alleging abusive behavior by an ex-colleague, who was seeking employment with another organization at the time. 

“It was something that I grappled with, and ultimately I still stand by my decision,” Larson, a former PPNCS nurse, said. “Planned Parenthood decided my email was retaliation against a co-worker and terminated me. 

“A union contract could have kept me in the clinic. After years of dedication to this organization, giving my blood, sweat and tears and taking pride in what I do every single day, I’ve been left feeling pushed out and unwanted by people in the organization who didn’t know my name 10 months ago.” 

Executive officers and staff at SEIU Healthcare, which represents workers across the table from powerful and notoriously anti-union employers like Allina and Sanford Health, have never seen firsthand such an aggressive attempt to intimidate union leaders, Executive Vice President Phillip Cryan said. He called it “union busting” on par with campaigns at Starbucks and Amazon. 

“This is a long way off from the kind of pro-worker, progressive approach to their staff union that these workers expected and the labor movement expected when these workers organized last year,” Cryan said, adding that SEIU leadership had given PPNCS, including Richardson, “countless opportunities to walk back these extreme actions” before asking the SEIU Minnesota State Council to rescind its endorsement. 

Richardson did not directly respond to a request for comment on union busting at PPNCS or the SEIU endorsement. But PPNCS issued a statement denying the bargaining team members’ allegations and emphasizing its commitment to completing the negotiations. 

“Planned Parenthood North Central States leadership remains committed to bargaining in good faith with SEIU and remain committed to adhering to the law,” the statement reads. “As we have stated previously, no staff have been disciplined or fired by PPNCS for union organizing, however, unions are not designed to be a shield for misconduct.” 

As the NLRB investigates workers’ charges, SEIU members plan to raise awareness of the increasingly toxic work environment at PPNCS – and demand Larson’s reinstatement – at public rallies across the organization’s five-state jurisdiction. The rallies will also demand accountability from PPNCS leaders regarding a recent decision to close three clinics in Iowa. 

During the press conference, workers said they are hopeful of drawing support from both the reproductive care community and the labor movement.  

“We don’t want to pit abortion rights and workers’ rights against each other, especially right now,” Larson said. 

No other union has pulled its endorsement of Richardson, who has a strong voting record on labor issues and drew praise from labor leaders as a lead author of the new statewide family leave law.  

But the dispute is likely to draw increased attention with the Legislature adjourned. Delegates to the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation last month approved a resolution in support of SEIU’s campaign to hold Richardson accountable for union busting at PPNCS. 

“A CEO who engages in this course of conduct toward the elected leaders of a union and who stands by those decisions and refuses to make any changes to them – even as the actions cause fully half of the union bargaining team to no longer be working for the organization she leads – does not deserve the labor movement’s support,” Cryan said. “She has done some great things as an elected official, but her actions as CEO fly in the face of those accomplishments.” 

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Psych workers at M Health, Allina strike during Mental Health Awareness Month

May 25, 2022 by

Mental health workers picket outside M Health Fairview Hospital in Minneapolis during a one-day strike.

How do you observe Mental Health Awareness Month when the crisis in your workplace continues to worsen?

Over 400 mental health workers in the Twin Cities answered that question yesterday by going on strike for union contracts that address safety concerns and low wages in their industry.

The one-day strike over unfair labor practices brought picket lines to three local hospitals: Allina’s Abbott Northwestern and Unity hospitals and M Health Fairview Hospital, where workers converged for a noon-hour rally with elected officials and other community allies.

Stephanie Stark, a senior mental health coordinator at Allina Health, said members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa decided to strike to raise awareness of the “historic underfunding and lack of respect for mental health work.”

“It’s time for those in charge to take this crisis seriously,” she said. “This work is too important to be ignored and undervalued.”

Mental health workers joined the SEIU in a wave of organizing campaigns last fall, and they are currently bargaining their first contracts with Allina and M Health.

Union members’ top priorities in those talks are respect for their work, safety protections for workers and patients, and a “pay scale in line with our professional degrees,” Unity Hospital senior mental health coordinator Christy Beach said.

Beach and other union leaders said pay increases are necessary to recruit and retain workers in facilities too often overwhelmed by community needs. On the picket line outside M Health Fairview, several workers carried signs referencing the recent conversion of an ambulance bay at the Masonic Children’s Hospital into a shelter for children awaiting mental or emotional health services.

“James Hereford, what did he get, $3.9 million last year?” M Health psych associate Brian McIntosh said, calling out M Health’s CEO by name. “Having these kids in this ambulance bay is not right, and that’s what we’re about to change.”

Workers also described an uptick in violence and safety issues. McIntosh said one co-worker burned through her paid time off after suffering a cracked rib on the job, and another told him the post-traumatic stress from a workplace assault still jolts her awake at night.

Despite dozens of bargaining sessions with the health systems, workers’ safety and wage demands have fallen largely on deaf ears, prompting a near-unanimous vote to authorize the strike before Mental Health Awareness Month ends.

“We are showing those in charge that we are serious about making change in our industry,” Stark said.

Mental health workers picketed outside MHealth Fairview hospital during a one-day strike in May

Several elected officials joined the picket lines and the rally at M Health Fairview. State Sen. Erin Murphy (D-St. Paul), a registered nurse, told mental health workers that by advocating for themselves, they are advocating for their communities.

“It is up to you, in the end, to take care of the patient,” Murphy said. “It’s not the people in the corner office that are doing that work. It’s you, and you need to be protected and staffed in such a way that you can do your jobs with skill and care.”

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, when advocates push for increased support for the 1 in 5 Americans who live with mental illness or a substance-use disorder, and seek to reduce the stigma associated with them, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

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