Nurses picket as Hazelden Betty Ford drags out first-contract talks

June 5, 2026 by

MNA members picket outside Hazelden Betty Ford’s facility in Center City.

Nurses bargaining a first union contract with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation held informational picketing June 2 at the renowned addiction-treatment facility in Center City, looking to raise awareness of their safety and staffing concerns.

Members of the Minnesota Nurses Association had hoped Hazelden administrators would take a collaborative approach to addressing the issues behind their vote to unionize in January 2025.

But those hopes have fizzled over 16 months of mostly unproductive talks.

“A lot of things that we propose, they’ll propose back that they don’t need it to be written out,” Cara Bergner, a registered nurse in Hazelden’s detox unit, said on the picket line. “They just want it up to management’s discretion, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the contract.

“I think their hopes are that if they put it off, we’ll get tired and give up. But I don’t see that being the case.”

Anne Coleman, another registered nurse in the detox unit, said nurses are bargaining for changes that will make their jobs more sustainable – and they’re doing it because they believe in the Hazelden Betty Ford mission.

“We take people in a crisis situation who, a lot of the time, come in very broken, and I just love to see them get their lives back, to get the confidence and light back in their eyes,” Coleman said. “I love to see them heal.

“We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t love the mission, the patients and the many things that Hazelden has done for the community and nationwide. But the healthcare system itself is broken, and, unfortunately, it’s trickled down to Hazelden.”

As the rate of violence against healthcare workers rises nationwide, Hazelden nurses are increasingly treating patients under the influence of highly potent drugs like fentanyl. Union members say de-escalation tactics, which they are trained to use when a patient becomes violent, are insufficient alone.

“We’re bringing in higher-acuity, more severe cases of people who have mental-health issues and severe addictions,” Bergner said. “We don’t have any other safeguards (besides de-escalation) and any true, straightforward protocols for staff members’ safety.”

In bargaining, nurses have floated proposals like round-the-clock security, panic buttons and minimum staffing levels. Some units, Bergner and Coleman said, have just one nurse on the floor at times, leaving staff overwhelmed.

Perhaps predictably, an increasing number of Hazelden nurses are leaving the bedside. Turnover has affected about a third of MNA’s 60-person bargaining unit of registered and licensed practical nurses, according to the union.

Coleman said factors behind the attrition include stagnant wages over the last two years, recent benefit cuts and management’s unwillingness to agree to measures that would make nurses feel safer and more supported on the job.

Newly hired nurses are leaving too. “They come here,” Bergner said, “and before they really get a love for the job, they’re like, ‘This space is crazy.’”

For nurses who remain, the turnover creates more short staffing and extends their shifts. Coleman said she has worked as many as 16 hours straight.

“I’m happy to do it because I want my patients to have the support they need and the safety,” she said. “However, it’s not sustainable.

“We’ve got so many experienced nurses who really, truly care for our patients that we’ve lost. All that we’re asking is for Hazelden to work with us.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Washington County workers ready to strike for staffing, mental health benefits

March 20, 2026 by

Members of AFSCME Local 517 march together into the Washington County Board meeting March 24.

Members of a bargaining unit representing nearly 900 Washington County employees voted in late February to authorize a strike, demanding a new union contract that addresses understaffing and improves their access to mental-health benefits.

Local 517 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) delivered a petition with over 1,800 signatures to the Board of Commissioners this morning.

The bargaining unit brings together a range of county employees, from social workers and child support officers to workers who handle property records and maintain county facilities.

Local 517’s previous contract expired Dec. 31, although its terms remain in effect as talks continue. The two sides are scheduled to resume talks with a state mediator April 17.

Workers don’t want to strike, Local 517 President Benjamin Henry, an eligibility specialist with the county, said. But they do want the county to take their concerns seriously.

“As long as they’re willing to meet with us and work in good faith to come to an agreement that works for both sides, we have no intention of calling a strike at this particular time,” he said.

But Henry also noted that any work stoppage would cripple the county’s ability to deliver services because, as workers have been pointing out at the bargaining table, their departments are already stretched so thin.

“This county has been grinding people to the bone for countless years,” Henry said. “They run a skeleton crew almost everywhere. Even a loss of 40% of the workforce would be devastating.”

Burnout on the front line

The union’s top two demands – accessible mental health care and better staffing – are related. Backlogs in some offices, Henry said, stretch months longer than state guidelines recommend, leaving staff members to deal with the stress of increasingly frustrated clients and community members.

“It’s not a sustainable model,” he said.

As their ranks have thinned through attrition, the work many members of the bargaining unit are doing has become more complex. That leads to what Carrie Genereux, a chief steward and Family Services worker for the county, called “secondary trauma.”

“A lot of the folks we’re working with on a daily basis have experienced some trauma, and the people who are helping are also impacted by that,” she said. “It plays a major role in why the focus on mental health is so important right now… Our jobs are hard, and they’ve always been hard, but it’s a different level of hard now.”

After the bargaining unit lost three people to suicide in recent years – with another worker attempting suicide and co-workers calling for a wellness check on a fifth – Local 517 came to the bargaining table with a dozen proposals for removing barriers that union members said they encounter in accessing mental health care.

The biggest barrier is out-of-pocket costs, which have increased by as much as 40% in recent years, and workers say their employer-sponsored insurance plans rate among the least affordable for county employees in the region.

“The high-deductible plan is what most of our folks can afford,” Henry said. “And for an individual, you’re looking at $3,500 as a deductible before $1 is covered on anything… people are finding it difficult to spend $200 to $250 once or twice a week to meet with a therapist.”

‘It didn’t feel like a negotiation’

In the first mediation session Feb. 2, county administrators leveled up their wage proposal, matching cost-of-living increases extended to two other bargaining units. But the employer brushed aside Local 517’s proposals around staffing and mental health, demanding the union bring their proposal to membership for a vote.

“It didn’t feel like a negotiation to me,” Henry said. “It felt like, you’ll take it and you’ll like it.”

Members voted to reject the offer and, Henry said, sent a message to county administrators that “they are failing to acknowledge that these are significant areas of impact for our members, who are standing up for themselves.”

Indeed, Local 517 has seen a surge in interest since the contract campaign began. Genereux said a significant number of workers covered by the bargaining unit have since signed up to join the union.

“If we’re not taken care of, we can’t take care of the community,” she said. “Our members want to make sure we are staffed appropriately and we are able to manage our own lives in a way that allows us to do our jobs and show up and serve this community.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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As baristas warn of strike, Starbucks closes MN’s first unionized store

October 17, 2025 by

Baristas walk the picket line with community supporters at the unionized Starbucks in St. Anthony.

Starbucks has closed its café at 300 Snelling Ave. South in St. Paul, where baristas became the first in Minnesota to win a union election in April 2022.

The closure was part of a corporate restructuring in September that saw about 500 locations shut down.

Union shops, including Starbucks’ flagship coffee house in Seattle, were disproportionately impacted by the closures.

Starbucks Workers United represents over 12,000 baristas at 650 stores, roughly 3% of Starbucks locations in the U.S. Unionized locations made up about 14% of shuttered stores.

Phil Rienstra, who worked in the St. Paul store for two years before it closed, said he and other baristas learned on Thursday, Sept. 25, that the location would shut down for good that weekend.

Phil Rienstra is a former barista at the 300 Snelling store.

“It was sudden, it was callous and it was cruel,” Rienstra said of the abrupt closing. “Months and years of work for the company have been cast aside.”

Starbucks has yet to settle a first contract with any of the bargaining units that began forming at cafés across the country in late 2021. Workers at the St. Paul store briefly negotiated with the company’s representatives, who walked out of the meeting after about five minutes.

Talks shifted away from local bargaining teams in February 2024, when the company and Starbucks Workers United announced they would begin bargaining a national framework contract. The process shifted to mediation earlier this year and has stalled out under the leadership of new CEO Brian Niccol.

Union negotiators were able, however, to win an improved severance package for members impacted by the latest restructuring. In effects bargaining last month, Workers United secured, among other gains, severance pay for union baristas even if they turn down a transfer offer – a guarantee not extended to non-union baristas.

Rienstra said he and other union members were disappointed but not deterred by the closure, and he pledged to keep organizing for a union contract at Starbucks, wherever he ends up next.

Abby Haland says baristas at the St. Anthony Starbucks are ready to strike for a fair first contract.

“This round of layoffs created hundreds of angry but capable people, ready to fight for what they are owed and do whatever it takes to make our union heard,” Rienstra said. “Starbucks does not get to just ignore us.”

To that end, union baristas picketed outside a Starbucks in St. Anthony and in 35 other cities across the country during the week of Sept. 30, giving the company a taste of what could be coming if it doesn’t settle a fair contract soon.

The action in St. Anthony drew about 40 picketers – union members and community supporters – to the Starbucks at 3704 Silver Lake Rd., where they chanted, “no contract, no coffee!” and drew honks of encouragement from passing drivers.

As rush-hour traffic whizzed by, several baristas took the bullhorn to voice their contract demands – like better staffing, more reliable hours and higher pay. Abby Haland, a St. Anthony barista, told the crowd she’s ready to strike for a first contract – and asked for their support.

“Take the pledge, ‘No Contract, No Coffee!’” she said. “And pledge to stand with us on the picket line if we have to go on strike, which we are prepared to do.”

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Workers call out ‘anti-union activities’ at Minnesota nursing homes

October 23, 2024 by

Union and non-union nursing home workers rallied outside Monarch’s offices as representatives sought a meeting with executives inside.

As Minnesota nursing homes continue to draw scrutiny for low wages, high turnover and staffing shortfalls, members of the state’s largest health care union are calling on one of the state’s largest nursing home companies to join them in working toward a solution.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, which represents over 50,000 health care workers, staged an hourlong rally Sept. 27 outside Monarch Healthcare Management’s corporate offices in Eagan, bringing together over 100 union and non-union nursing home workers and community supporters.

Two workers entered Monarch’s offices and briefly met with an executive to relay the group’s demands.

“We told him that we are fed up with working short every day, day in and day out, in these nursing homes,” Isaac Sant said. “It’s not safe for us as workers; it’s not safe for our residents. Things have got to change.”

Conditions are poised to change in the state’s nursing home industry, thanks to the work of a new Workforce Standards Board, authorized by DFL legislative majorities last year.

The board recently took the first steps toward setting a $20.50 minimum wage in all nursing homes, with higher rates for positions like LPNs and CNAs. The board also voted to require that nursing home workers receive time-and-a-half pay on all 11 state holidays.

But employer representatives on the board did not support the higher standards. And as the state’s rulemaking process grinds on, conditions inside nursing homes remain challenging for both staff and residents, workers at the rally said.

Bolanle Adedeji, who is training to work at a Monarch facility, said short staffing often prevents nursing home workers from offering the personalized care they want to give.

“At times, they want to share their minds, they want to talk with you, they want to relate to you,” she said. “But because of time constraints, you cannot let them. Some of them are weeping, some of them are crying that we are not there for them. So this short staffing has to stop now.”

One way to bring change, workers at the rally said, is by organizing a union. But SEIU representatives said Monarch is notorious for “anti-union activities” in its non-union facilities where workers show an interest in bargaining for better wages, benefits and staffing.

“The boss has the message that we’re here, and enough is enough with the short staffing, low pay and poor working conditions,” said Isaac Ngafua, who works at an assisted living facility in Brooklyn Center.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Union members rally in support of ‘People’s Post Office’

October 1, 2024 by

Postal workers held informational picketing outside the main post office in Eagan.

Postal workers rallied in Eagan and around the country today, ratcheting up their fight for a fair union contract and better customer service – two aims that go hand in hand, members of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) said.

“The American people deserve better,” Dave Cook, president of the St. Paul Area APWU local, said. “They deserve their public postal service back.”

Widespread complaints of slow mail delivery and long lines at the post office – including in Minnesota – are, in part, a result of staffing shortages at the USPS, Cook and other postal workers said.

The APWU has made staffing a top priority in contract negotiations covering 200,000 postal workers this year, demanding fair pay and benefits to retain and recruit workers. Union members also want the USPS to reverse a new policy that loosened its own “on-time” delivery standard from three to five days.

“They’ve cut staff because they don’t feel like they have to process every piece of mail every day,” Cook said of postal administrators’ new approach, known as “Delivering for America.”

But many post offices are so short staffed, union members said, that they are struggling to meet even the newly relaxed delivery standard.

Denise Jensen, an APWU steward at her Duluth post office, said workers are “doing their best to make it work with less,” but they are tired of bearing the brunt of public frustration. Meanwhile, the Postal Board of Governors recently adopted a policy that restricts public comments before the board to one time per year.

“They won’t give us the tools to make it work better,” Jensen said. “We’re always behind, and I feel bad for our customers. We have to face them, and it’s hard because we live in the communities we work in.”

Jensen said full-time workers who retire from her post office are often being replaced by part-timers, and postmasters are increasingly doing work that falls under clerks’ jurisdiction, prompting the union to file grievances.

“They don’t care,” she said. “Upper management knows it has to cut corners to make it work, but I’m still handing out refunds for guaranteed, two-day deliveries when it doesn’t happen, which is a lot.”

The rally at the main post office in Eagan came on a national day of action in support of “The People’s Post Office,” organized by the APWU. The union’s contract was set to expire Sept. 20, but the two sides agreed to extend the agreement while bargaining continues. Contract negotiations began in June.

Learn more about the campaign at peoplespostoffice.org.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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St. Paul educators’ new contracts deliver pay increases, preserve classroom gains

March 14, 2024 by

Educators held an “art build” for a potential strike at the Carpenters union’s training center in St. Paul.

St. Paul educators voted this week to ratify new union contracts that will improve their pay and benefits while upholding the in-classroom supports they won in previous bargaining cycles.

“Educators often bargain for things that are outside of those bread-and-butter issues,” St. Paul Federation of Educators President Leah VanDassor said. “This time around, we’re really struggling to keep our educators in St. Paul, so we did push a lot harder on pay and benefits than in the past. And we did get some classroom wins as well.”

The union said its members voted “overwhelmingly” to ratify contracts covering 3,689 employees in the St. Paul Public Schools. Three bargaining units – licensed teachers, educational assistants, and school and community professionals – negotiated jointly with the district, and each agreed to two-year contracts that will expire after the 2024-25 school year.

Educational assistants, the lowest-paid SPFE members, will see the steepest wage increases under the new contracts, with an hourly hike of $2.25 retroactive to Jan. 1 and an across-the-board increase of 4% in 2024-25. That amounts to a 16% pay increase for newly hired workers.

Other union members will see salary increases of $3,084 or $3,500 this school year retroactive to Jan. 1, and a 4% pay increase next year. The contracts also provide longevity bonuses and increased holiday pay to some educators, and the district will increase its contribution to union members’ health plans.

“With historic funding from the state, now was the time to be bold for our members and our students – and we were,” VanDassor said. “I’m proud of the improvements we won for our schools with this contract and the past progress we were able to expand upon.”

Prior to reaching a tentative agreement with SPFE on March 5, school administrators had claimed that the student-centered commitments won by the union in previous bargaining cycles – like language capping class sizes and establishing mental health teams in each school – prevented the district from offering competitive pay increases this cycle.

Not only will existing student supports remain in place under the new contracts, but SPFE won language that will reduce caseloads for some special-ed teachers, as well as new supports for dual language immersion educators.

The agreement also restores site councils at schools across the district, giving local educators, parents, students and district administrators a voice in decisions on budget priorities, events and other issues.

New contract language also will establish an easy process for educators who wish to change their names or pronouns used by the district, extending a policy to staff members that has been in place for SPPS students for about a decade.

“No one contract campaign can fix all of the things we need for our students and for our educators,” Erica Schatzlein, a member of the SPFE Executive Board, said during a press conference announcing the agreement. “But I do feel strongly that this is one big step.”

Throughout negotiations, which began last May, the SPFE bargaining team maintained that the district was painting an overly dire financial picture, pointing to a record $56 million increase in state funding delivered by lawmakers last year.

When union leaders asked for strike authorization in February, members responded with an overwhelming “yes” vote. Two weeks later, the SPFE filed notice of its intent to begin striking March 11 barring an agreement with the district.

A mediation session between two sides scheduled for Friday, March 1, stretched deep into the weekend without an agreement, and VanDassor said administrators’ economic offer did not meaningfully improve until educators held a raucous round of informational picketing outside district headquarters Monday, March 3.

When the two sides returned to the table, the district brought more money, doubling its proposed wage increase for educational assistants, VanDassor said.

SPFE members have voted to authorize a strike in every bargaining cycle since 2018, but union leaders found reason to believe a more collaborative bargaining relationship with the district could be possible. VanDassor credited school board members – six of whom her union endorsed – for taking more active role in negotiations.

“Elections matter, they really do,” she said. “We’ve turned over the board over with people who support educators and families. And it’s clear at the table, where we had four of six board members who could participate in negotiations actually show up and do that. It turned the tide.

“This is a step forward in our work with the board so we don’t get to this point again. It’s very encouraging.”

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Nursing home workers plan to strike as new industry standards board ramps up work

February 23, 2024 by

Workers at nursing homes across the Twin Cities are voting to stage a one-day strike March 5 over unfair labor practices, escalating their fight for pay and benefit increases that they say are needed to address staffing shortfalls in their industry.

Two local unions, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663, had announced workers at 10 nursing homes would join the strike when the March edition of The Union Advocate went to press. Leaders said strike-authorization votes at other facilities were still in the works.

At a press conference Feb. 20 outside Saint Therese in New Hope, nursing assistant Monyou Taye said she voted to strike because “workers and our residents deserve better.”

“We don’t have enough staff and equipment to keep up with the work,” Taye said. “Over the years we have had to do more and more … because not enough people want to do this important work under the current wages and benefits.

“It makes us feel burned out and stressed. It makes us feel angry.”

In her 15th year working at Saint Therese, Taye still earns less than $20 per hour, and a survey of 1,300 Minnesota nursing home workers conducted by SEIU last fall suggests she’s not alone. Half reported making less than $20 per hour, 80% said they make less than $25 per hour and nine out of 10 said they struggle to afford basic needs.

A strike is sure to draw the attention of Minnesota’s new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board, which began meeting last fall and is tasked with setting minimum employment standards in the industry.

The board, established by state lawmakers last year, is ramping up its work, and dozens of union members turned out for its first in-person meeting Feb. 21 in Brooklyn Park.

SEIU Healthcare members voted last year to push for a $25 wage floor in the industry, plus affordable health and retirement benefits.

“We know that these changes are possible, and we know that without them we are going to continue the staffing crisis that plagues the nursing home industry,” Jamie Gulley, the union’s president, said outside Saint Therese. “Workers are fed up, and that’s why we’re standing up and saying enough is enough. We are ready to strike.”

At press time, two nursing homes in the east metro, Cerenity in St. Paul and the Estates of Roseville, were among the locations where workers planned to strike March 5.

Teresa Brees, a Roseville worker with 25 years of experience in the industry, tore a tendon in her bicep after working 23 straight days last year. She and other long-term care workers “are at our breaking points,” she said, due to short staffing, and it won’t get better without better pay and benefits.

“How many more good people will we lose because of the low pay, lack of benefits and ongoing disrespect?” she said.

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Labor nonprofit helps OPEIU, HealthPartners bring learn-and-earn training to life

July 21, 2023 by

Supporters of the clinic assistant training program joined a celebration and press conference June 29. Pictured (L to R) are Jeff Ambroz, Kelsie Anderson, Mayor Melvin Carter and HealthPartners’ Lynzee Herfindahl and James McClean. (OPEIU photo)

Office and Professional Employees Local 12 and the Minnesota Training Partnership have tapped federal pandemic-relief funds to launch an earn-while-you-learn training program that will prepare young workers for in-demand jobs as clinic assistants with HealthPartners and other providers.

The program is open to Ramsey County residents ages 18 to 30. Coursework will take place both online and in person over the course of eight to 12 weeks, beginning in September. And best of all, participants will get a weekly stipend – the equivalent of $15 per hour over a 32-hour workweek – as they complete the training and search for jobs.

The clinic assistant program is among the training opportunities sponsored by Ramsey County’s new Learn and Earn Initiative, a joint venture with the City of Saint Paul that will invest $14.65 million in American Rescue Plan funds toward workforce development.

Officials announced the new training opportunities at a press conference in downtown St. Paul June 29.

Ramsey County Commissioner Rena Moran, who took a lead role in the city-county collaboration, said Learn and Earn partner agencies will provide 700 young workers with training in entrepreneurship, information technology, tree care, diesel technology and other fields over the next two years.

“That’s a true impact,” Moran said. “We are so excited to see the amazing impact that these investments will have on our young residents – and what that will bring to all of us in Ramsey County.”

“The work that we’re doing together with our federal partners, with our county partners, with the nonprofit folks … this work is critical,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said, adding that the program represents “democratized, equitable opportunity” for communities that have long faced institutional barriers to prosperity.

Offering a stipend to trainees removes a significant barrier for many jobseekers, Minnesota Training Partnership (MTP) Director of Develop-ment and Communications Jeff Ambroz said. MTP is the county’s nonprofit partner for the clinic assistant program.

“It’s going to open doors for a lot more people to participate,” he said. “For many young adults looking to enter a training program like this without a stipend, they would have to find a way to pay the rent, make the car payment or maybe cover child care. Most lower- to middle-income people can’t do that.

“This paid training program will give people a chance to get on the path to a great career, and we definitely wanted to be part of that.”

OPEIU Local 12 members who work at HealthPartners – which supported development of the clinic assistant training program – earn over $20 per hour to start, with industry-leading health benefits.

But like so many employers in recent years, HealthPartners has struggled with staffing shortfalls, Local 12 Business Representative Kelsie Anderson said. Finding qualified clinic assistants, who check in patients at the front desk, answer phones and handle other clerical work, has been particularly challenging since the COVID outbreak.

It’s become a point of frustration for other clinic workers, too.

“HealthPartners kept telling us there’s not any qualified candidates that are applying for this position,” said Anderson, who was a longtime HealthPartners employee before taking a position with her union. “And because we’re so short staffed, I’m not sure if HealthPartners is giving the best training opportunities to the people they do hire, because they don’t have the bodies to do it.”

Last year, when Ambroz checked in with Local 12 leaders about potential training ideas, the lightbulb went on. HealthPartners offered insight into the job description, and MTP enlisted St. Paul College to help build the right curriculum.

Ambroz said the clinic assistant training program is exactly the type of venture that leaders of the Minnesota AFL-CIO had in mind when they founded the Minnesota Training Partnership as a nonprofit organization in 2019.

“Union leaders have so many great ideas about ways to help their members build up their skills,” Ambroz said. “We try to find ways to find funding and help facilitate that, by letting them take the lead in a union-driven training.”

“Our union leadership has really emphasized training and education,” Anderson added. “But if it wasn’t for the Minnesota Training Partnership, we would never have been able to do this.”

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Union calls on Postal Service to address high turnover

May 18, 2023 by

Local members of the Postal Workers union held an event in Eagan to support a nationwide campaign for better staffing and service across the USPS.

Two local chapters of the American Postal Workers Union rallied together last month outside the Eagan Post Office, helping launch a nationwide campaign to address staffing shortfalls that, union members say, are driving down morale, creating unsafe working conditions and threatening the Postal Service’s reputation.

Union members want the agency to hire more workers and take steps to improve retention of new recruits. That means curtailing abusive treatment from management and finding ways to make workloads more manageable, St. Paul Area APWU President Dave Cook said.

“We get them in the door and they’re working six or seven days a week, sometimes 10-, 12- or 14-hour days,” Cook said. “And at that point they burn out and decide it’s not worth it.”

Cook’s union represents workers who sort mail and staff the counters of local post offices, as well as those in the regional processing plants like the one nearby in Eagan. The local planned the rally in partnership with APWU Local 7019, which represents employees at one of four Postal Data Centers nationwide, based in Eagan.

Postal union leaders recently issued a call to action, hoping to ramp up public pressure on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and members of Congress to address the staffing crisis, which has resulted in service delays and long lines at many post offices.

“Service problems are widespread, and no corner of the country has been spared,” American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein.

That is a direct result, union members say, of the agency’s inability to retain newly hired workers.

An audit by the USPS Office of Inspector General found that so-called “non-career” postal workers – the agency’s term for new hires – had a 58.9% turnover rate in 2022, up from 38.5% in 2019. The top reasons workers cited for quitting were a lack of respect from supervisors and too many hours on the job.

Dave Cook is president of the St. Paul-area branch of the APWU.

And if it seems like lines at your local post office are getting longer, you’re probably right.

The number of retail counter clerks and workers who distribute mail to letter carriers has dropped by over 12% since 2006, from roughly 79,000 to 69,000 nationwide. At the same time, the number of labor-intensive packages delivered by the USPS has skyrocketed, and the number of delivery points served by the USPS has increased by 12.8%.

“Constant turnover, constant training, the short staffing has created such a morale problem in the back of your local post offices, your processing facilities that the public doesn’t even see,” Cook said. “That hurts the service.”

But more customers are beginning to take note.

Although an overwhelming majority of Americans still have a favorable opinion of the USPS, the most recent poll released by the Pew Research Center in March 2023 found the agency’s favorability rating had slipped to 77%, down from 91% in 2020.

“We are in a snowball effect right now, and it just gets worse by the month,” Cook said. “We need to turn that tide.”

Union leaders have little faith DeJoy, appointed postmaster general by former President Donald Trump, will act on their allegations of widespread abusive behavior among management in the agency.

Aaron Young

“You’ve got some bad apples in management, and we have some people who walk in every day feeling like they’re walking on eggshells,” Local 7019 President Aaron Young said.

But Young and other labor leaders are holding out hope that Congress will act. They have been pushing federal legislation that would hold the Postal Service to more rigorous service standards, hoping to force the agency to recruit and retain staff necessary to meet them.

“They need to restore the service standards that they had back in 2012,” Young said. “Unfortunately, we have a postmaster who came from the private sector. So he’s trying to treat it like a business and look only at the bottom line. He’s not taking into account the service to people who have depended on it for so many years. It’s really disheartening.”

Cook said the Eagan rally was “just the start” of a larger, nationwide campaign.

“Postal workers across the country have taken a stand, and we are working with our congressional leaders to hopefully get laws that will create better staffing,” he said. “The public wants the post office, and we want to give them a better post office.”

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