First union contract delivers gains for Mississippi Market workers

February 2, 2026 by

Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 voted last month to ratify a first contract with Mississippi Market after 11 months of bargaining with the St. Paul co-op grocer.

Union negotiators said the three-year contract delivers on the demands that sparked co-op workers’ organizing drive, including more agency in the workplace, economic gains and improvements to scheduling.

Clara Cady, produce buyer and lead who served on Local 1189’s bargaining committee, described the process as empowering.

“I feel like I have a voice in the workplace now, and I feel like my peers and my co-workers have a voice in the workplace,” Cady said. “That’s what we all deserve.”

The bargaining unit brings together over 150 workers at Mississippi Market’s three locations. They voted to form a union with Local 1189 in October 2024.

Bargaining began the following January, after the busy holiday season had passed – and after union members had an opportunity to participate in a survey of what they wanted to accomplish in a first contract. At the top of the list, Cady said, were fairer scheduling policies and more communication with management.

The new contract delivered on both.

A new labor-management committee (LMC) allows workers to bring their issues and ideas to management in a formal setting. Cady, who works at the co-op on Dale Street and Selby Avenue, said she envisions the committee as a place to work through ongoing safety concerns at her location.

“A lot of these concerns have been brought up to the market, and people feel like it’s fallen on deaf ears,” she said. “A lot of what, I think, people wanted was that feeling of being heard – and in return, hearing from management, ‘We’re going to address this, and here’s how.’

“Now, anyone can go and voice their concerns regarding whatever issues they may have, and it will be addressed in those LMC meetings.”

Workers also now get their schedules two weeks in advance, with changes allowed only if they are agreed to by staff. The contract includes protections for workers who are late or miss work during a severe weather event, and it bars managers from scheduling them to “clopen” – working consecutive closing and opening shifts.

The first contract improves union members’ wages and benefits, too. A restructured wage scale will deliver two raises per year – one on a worker’s hiring anniversary date and another on the anniversary of the contract ratification.

Co-op workers also won more paid time off, longer breaks and a more generous and flexible bereavement policy.

Local 1189 President Adam Evenstad credited Mississippi Market workers, who “trudged through a long, hard-fought process” but “never wavered” in their support for each other.

“Their solidarity has been inspiring,” he added.

For her part, Cady said she was proud of the new contract and glad she participated in the negotiations process, even if it meant stepping outside her comfort zone.

“I think a lot of us felt very out of our element sitting in a room across from a lawyer and all of these higher ups from your job,” Cady said. “But I learned so much about myself, and I feel really good about the way we were able to advocate for my peers and for my co-workers.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Organizing 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: , , , , , ,

With support from shoppers, St. Paul co-op workers win landslide union election

October 11, 2024 by

(UFCW photo)

Mississippi Market Co-Op workers voted Wednesday to unionize. The organizing drive, which drew public support from several co-op members, brings together 158 workers at the grocer’s three St. Paul locations.

Workers voted 82-19 in favor of joining United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, which represents retail workers at Cub Foods, Lunds & Byerlys, Kowalski’s and other unionized grocers in the Twin Cities’ east metro.

Rowan Garrigan, a cheese buyer at the co-op on West 7th Street, said the landslide result shows that Mississippi Market workers are eager for a seat at the table in decisions that affect their working conditions.

“The market does a lot of things right, but without the employees getting much of a voice, it’s easy for things to go wrong,” she said. “A union contract guarantees we get to be heard, that we get a say in things.”

The organizing drive moved quickly after co-op workers approached Local 1189 last January, shortly after a group of workers confronted management about its attendance policy. Garrigan said workers were being docked points for staying home when sick, even when they had a doctor’s note.

“We tried doing things the official way, through the market,” she said. “And we just weren’t being heard.”

Frustration boiled over after a round of restructuring earlier this year – in which the co-op eliminated its butcher shop and reassigned meatcutters to other jobs – took workers by surprise.

“There was no consultation, no conversation,” Garrigan said. “Essentially, all the butchers and people in the meat department got demoted, and we lost a lot of good people because they left to do the jobs they wanted to do.

“That really solidified the need for a union.”

Within months, a majority of Mississippi Market workers had signed union-authorization cards, and supporters marched on their store managers Sept. 19 to request voluntary recognition of the bargaining unit.

Management refused, leaving workers to petition the National Labor Relations Board for an election. But before that vote was even scheduled, workers succeeded in turning out member-owners to speak in support of the union during the co-op board of directors’ meeting Sept. 24.

Garrigan believes the show of support discouraged management from employing the kind of “aggressive” anti-union tactics it used during an unsuccessful organizing drive in 2018.

“I don’t know how it could have gone, but I do think that shoppers helped the market know they were being held accountable,” Garrigan said. “Coming in straight away with strong community support sent a wonderful message.”

Public support for unions is at a 60-year high point, according to Gallup, and the retail sector, in particular, has seen a wave of organizing activity, from Trader Joe’s and REI to Starbucks and Apple Stores.

Mississippi Market workers are among about 300 new members who have joined Local 1189 in the last decade, thanks to successful organizing drives at Half Price Books, a local climbing gym and in the medical cannabis industry.

Retail workers are looking to unions for stability, accountability from management and better compensation, Local 1189 President Adam Evenstad said.

“Most workers coming to us feel that they are undercompensated for the market, and they’re right,” Evenstad said. “Through negotiation they’ve been able to make great strides in wages and benefits, but a lot of the contracts we’ve bargained have created policies that will make their workday better in general and a process to sit down and work out day-to-day issues, too.”

Younger retail workers, Garrigan added, are tired of being taken for granted by their employers.

“If people aren’t going to listen, it’s important that we get involved and make them,” she said. “There are a lot of things the average person doesn’t have much control over, but unionizing was something I could do, something I could do to make my community better.”

Evenstad said he doesn’t think the wave of interest in retail unions has peaked. In fact, he hinted that Local 1189 may have more organizing drives to announce soon.

“We’re working on our next victories already, and it’s our expectation that those are going to come with this surge of young hungry workers that want more voice and more power in their workplace.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

After trendsetting campaign, Twin Cities workers ratify first contracts with Half Price Books

June 12, 2024 by

Workers at Half Price Books in Roseville shut down the store during a two-day strike in July 2023. (UA file photo)

After an organizing drive that sparked similar efforts at bookstores across the country, workers at four Half Price Books stores in the Twin Cities ratified their first union contracts May 31, winning higher wages, job security and a voice on the job.

“Through the hard work of the entire bargaining committee, we have shown all of our co-workers the priceless value of having a union contract,” Aaron Kerr, a bookseller at the Roseville store, said. “This is going to help everyone at Half Price Books, and it will continue for decades to come.”

The contracts cover workers at Half Price Books locations in Roseville and St. Paul, who are members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189, as well as workers at stores in Coon Rapids and St. Louis Park, who are members of UFCW Local 663.

Union members from all four stores bargained jointly with the company. Their new contracts include higher starting wages – up from $12 to $16 across the company since workers formed their union, according to a statement released by the UFCW.

The contracts also include job protections like a “just cause” discipline policy with grievance procedures, protections for transgender workers and new rules governing layoff and recall process, scheduling and job classifications.

But those gains didn’t come without a fight.

Beginning in November 2021, local bookstore workers voted to unionize in four separate National Labor Relations Board elections, after Half Price Books refused their petition for voluntary recognition.

Contract bargaining began in spring 2022, but momentum toward first contracts slowed when talks reached the economic phase. Workers began appealing to customers for support, wearing union pins and demonstrating outside their stores.

In July 2023, workers at all four stores walked off the job in a two-day strike over unfair labor practices, accusing the company of dragging out negotiations in an attempt to bust their union.

Local 1189 President Jim Gleb praised the “commitment and incredible solidarity” that Half Price Books workers showed during their organizing and contract campaigns.

“They have shown workers all around the country what can be achieved by standing up for your rights, and I am proud to have them as members of the UFCW,” Gleb said. “The labor community is lucky to count them among us.”

Indeed, since Minnesota workers formed the first union at a Half Price Books location, booksellers at stores in Indiana, Illinois, Kansas and California have unionized, too.

Minnesota workers were the second Half Price Books union to ratify first contracts, following UFCW members at the Half Price Books in Greenwood, Ind., who voted on their union contract a week earlier.

“Workers at Half Price Books have blazed a path that inspires others to follow,” Local 663 Secretary-Treasurer Michael LaCoste said. “UFCW welcomes any workers that want to build a better life together.”

Wyatt Feten, a bookseller at the Northtown Half Price Books in Coon Rapids, added: “This victory comes from the work of everyone at all of our stores. We are looking forward to this new era at Half Price Books with an official union contract and representation.”

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

New state board sets $20.50 wage floor in nursing home industry

June 10, 2024 by

SEIU member Nessa Higgins spoke during a press conference at the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, as (L to R) Teresa Brees, T.J. Hart, Michelle Armstrong and Labor Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach looked on.

Thousands of nursing home workers across Minnesota are likely to see their pay dramatically increase over the next three years after the state’s new board to oversee workforce standards in the industry authorized a $20.50 minimum wage April 29.

The new wage floor will phase in over the next three years, with higher minimums for certified nursing assistants ($24 per hour), trained medication aides ($25) and licensed practical nurses ($28.50).

DFL state lawmakers passed a bill last year establishing the Nursing Home Standards Board, the first of its kind in the U.S. It was a top political priority for three unions representing nursing home workers: SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the United Steelworkers.

At a press conference following the board’s vote, workers praised the new standards as historic. Some became emotional in discussing the implications for themselves, their fellow workers and nursing home residents across Minnesota, where the industry has seen some of the worst staffing shortfalls in the nation.

“I have been doing this work for most of my lifetime, and I have seen the consistency of staff drop over time,” said Michelle Armstrong, a nurse and member of Local 1189 who served on the standards board. “We’ve lost the continuity of care, which hurts workers and residents.

“We need to do everything we can to change things, and today, I hope, is a big step forward.”

Nessa Higgins, who works at the Estates of Chateau in south Minneapolis, said that over her 25-year career, she has watched executives increase their own pay while struggling to attract and retain workers to frontline jobs. She said some of her co-workers now work multiple nursing-home jobs to make ends meet for their families.

“When that wage goes up, that’s them spending more time with their families because they don’t have to work two or three jobs,” she said. “We give everything that we’ve got, and it never trickles down to us – it just stops with the higher-ups.”

“I make $17.68 an hour, and I’ve been working at this facility for seven years,” Roseville Estates laundry worker Teresa Brees, an SEIU member, said. “That’s all I make. Thankfully, the Standards Board, (when the wage floor begins phasing in) will see that at least I get above $19. That’s really important to me.”

In addition to the wage floor, the new board also mandated that nursing home workers receive time-and-a-half pay on all 11 state holidays – a move T.J. Hart, who works in food service at a non-union nursing home, described as a matter of fairness.

“Long-term-care facilities are 24-7 facilities, and it’s not management who’s working on holidays,” Hart said. “We are the ones that are working on holidays and taking time away from our families and friends while we’re serving our residents.”

Higgins, an SEIU member, said she has struggled with the question of whether to leave her current position for a higher-paying job – a choice she hopes she won’t have to make now, with the new standards poised to take effect.

“Some of my best friends are residents at that nursing home,” Higgins said. “I’m there every day. I know I look forward to seeing them, and they look forward to seeing me. I want to stay right there with the family that I have been with.”

The nine-member board approved the higher standards with three worker representatives and three government representatives voting yes, while three employer representatives abstained.

Rasha Ahmad Sharif, a vice president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and leader of its long-term care sector, called the board’s vote a “revolutionary moment seeing nursing home workers – union and non-union alike – standing up and demanding change.”

“We stand by and support this board and are excited for these new standards,” Ahmad Sharif added. “We still have a lot of work to do, but this is an amazing step forward for nursing home workers and residents all across Minnesota.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Grocery workers workers win historic raises, landmark safety language in new contracts

March 25, 2024 by

A Lunds & Byerly’s worker hands out samples at the deli counter inside the downtown St. Paul store.

Contract talks between east-metro grocers and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189 are off to an encouraging start.

Within weeks of opening negotiations, workers at two retail chains have reached tentative agreements that include the largest wage increases ever for their bargaining units.

Local 1189 announced a tentative contract agreement covering workers at five east metro Lunds & Byerly’s locations March 14. Within a week, the union had another agreement covering workers at six Kowalski’s stores.

Both units were scheduled to take ratification votes in early April, as negotiations continued on contracts covering workers at three other chains: UNFI-owned Cub Foods, Jerry’s and Jerry’s Cub, and Festival Foods.

The first two settlements have set a high bar, and members of the worker-led bargaining teams credited a pro-labor climate, both locally and nationally, with giving them momentum to win big at the bargaining table.

“You see the headlines with the teachers and what’s happened with the auto industry,” Lunds & Byerly’s worker Zach Boling Green said. “Unions are kind of gaining traction in a way I haven’t seen before – and even the more veteran members haven’t seen before. I think that set the stage for this contract.”

Local 1189 members also pointed to the aggressive contract campaign taken on by grocery workers in their sibling local, Minneapolis-based UFCW Local 663, last year. It included several strike votes and informational picketing – and led to historic gains in their contracts.

Claire Van den Berghe, Local 1189’s organizing director, said it was clear that Kowalski’s and Lunds & Bylerly’s were not eager for another round of contentious bargaining, and they could see that Local 1189 members were mobilizing for a fight.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work to prepare for bargaining,” she said. “The employers have clearly noticed, and I think they are anxious about having another big fight. So to head it off, they actually came with good proposals.

“We had built strong committees because we were expecting to have a big fight. They kind of pulled the rug out from under us.”

Gains in the new contracts include increased opportunities for full-time work, protections for meatcutters’ jobs, new language protecting workers from having to travel in dangerous weather and industry-leading wage increases.

Lunds & Byerly’s full-time workers will earn $4.50 per hour more by the end of the two-year contract, $3.50 for part-timers. At Kowalski’s full-time workers will se a $3.75 raise, $2.50 for part-timers.

The pacts also include new safety language, setting minimum staffing on night shifts and, for Lunds workers, creating a new, first-in-the-nation process to develop policies covering violent events in their stores – from prevention and response to accommodations for workers who experience a violent event.

“After events in Buffalo and El Paso, we know that grocery and retail workers, unfortunately, are sometime targets for this kind of violence,” Boling Green said. “We just wanted to ensure the union is present in those discussions around procedures and training.

“Whenever we can have a hand in those things, I think workers stand to benefit.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

Insulted by 1% wage offer, Half Price Books workers strike

July 13, 2023 by

Striking Half Price Books workers picketed the Roseville store Thursday morning.

Fed up with slow negotiations and an “insulting” wage offer, Half Price Books workers in the Twin Cities called a two-day strike this morning, and more than 40 union members – about three-quarters of the bargaining unit – showed up in Brooklyn Center at the site of scheduled talks with management.

But the bosses responded by canceling negotiations for the week and closing all four stores – the latest example, union member Hanna Anderson said, that the company is more interested in dragging out the process than in taking workers’ demands seriously.

“They told us that they needed the day to figure out the logistics of running the stores, so they couldn’t bargain,” said Anderson, a shift leader at the store in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood. “An hour later we all got messages that all four of the stores were going to be closed for the next two days.”

That left workers, including longtime bookseller Aaron Kerr, fuming on the picket line.

“They are not in there. The stores are not open. Why are they not at the bargaining table?” Kerr said outside the Roseville location where he has worked for more than two decades. “That is something that makes me incredibly angry.”

Union members are angry, too, about HPB’s stubborn wage proposal, stuck at increases of 1% annually since the company made its first economic proposal in May. Anderson said the offer is insulting, especially given that the union scaled back its demands in bargaining earlier this week.

“This past session we came down a little bit,” she said. “They are holding to their 1%, and they refuse to even entertain anything else, which is obviously very upsetting to everyone here. Especially the past week, when the company basically said we don’t deserve a living wage, that really frustrated everyone.”

Workers have proposed increasing HPB’s starting pay from $15 to $16 per hour and $1.50 wage hikes for other employees, plus a new pay scale based on longevity.

Currently, workers get quarterly bonuses and annual raises at their bosses’ discretion, but raises of 2% or 3% don’t amount to much when your pay is stuck at $15 per hour, Anderson said.

“And there have been years where, if we were getting a new computer system, there weren’t bonuses,” she said. “It is just if they are willing to give us them. You can’t rely on them.”

Workers from the St. Paul and Roseville stores bargain jointly with workers from St. Louis Park and Coon Rapids locations. They all voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers – locals 1189 and 663 – in separate elections starting in November 2021.

Negotiations over a first contract began over 19 months ago, and they had been productive before reaching the economic phase, with tentative agreements on workplace health and safety, grievance procedures, scheduling. Other agreements would prevent managers from filling jobs that would take hours away from union members, and would clearly establish a process, based primarily on seniority, for potential layoffs.

Talks turned to economics this spring, and after a round of handbilling and informational picketing failed to move management, workers finally have called a strike, formally citing charges of unfair labor practices that the union filed over management’s failure to share “crucial information.”

It’s a big step for a new union to take, Anderson acknowledged.

“We have been saying ‘strike’ is kind of like the s-word,” she said. “People were nervous. But we have legal protections. We are really a close-knit community, and seeing everyone from all four stores has been really awesome.”

Kerr said support for the strike was overwhelming, and it showed in the turnout at the planned bargaining session this morning.

“In our meetings, everybody showed up and it was almost unanimous that we need to do this,” he said. “We have got to do whatever it takes to make management understand we are serious, or they will continue to pretend that what they want to give us is completely reasonable.”

Workers held picketing at all four stores today, traveling from Coon Rapids to Roseville in the morning, then hitting St. Paul and St. Louis Park in the afternoon.

Supporters are welcome to join the picket line (monitor the union’s social media feeds for locations). Union members are also asking supporters to call on Regional Manager Bill Holland to get back to the bargaining table and settle a fair contract.

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

Workers keep pressure on Half Price Books for a fair first contract

May 26, 2023 by

Workers outside the Roseville store last weekend included (L to R) Garrett Hoffman, Max Sparks, Terell Paris, Hanna Anderson, Aaron Kerr and Bill Lloyd.

Nearly 18 months into bargaining their first union contract, workers at four Half Price Books locations in the Twin Cities are enlisting customer and public support to push their talks across the finish line.

Union members, who began holding public actions outside union stores last weekend, say the bookseller developed a case of writer’s block when it came time to draft economic terms of the contract.

The union’s bargaining team delivered its proposal for wages and benefits earlier this year, said Aaron Kerr, who has over 25 years of experience with the company.

“We were expecting them to counter on that offer two months ago, and they have not,” Kerr said Sunday outside the Roseville store where he works. “They stalled. They brought in a new lawyer, who pretended to not know what we wanted.”

With talks set to resume May 30, union members began appealing to customers outside the Coon Rapids and Roseville stores last weekend. The actions will continue from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday at the St. Louis Park store and at the same time Sunday outside the St. Paul store, located in Highland Park.

“We’re handing out stickers and bookmarks, just telling everybody about what’s going on with our negotiations and asking for their support,” Kerr said. “We want to put some pressure on the company, and hopefully then we can get back to business.”

Workers at all four stores are bargaining jointly with Half Price Books, with representation from the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

The talks had been productive before reaching the economic phase, with the two sides reaching tentative agreements on language regarding workplace health and safety, grievance procedures and scheduling.

Other tentative agreements would prevent managers from filling jobs that would take hours away from workers in union shops, and would clearly establish a process, based primarily on seniority, for potential layoffs.

Kerr said supporters are welcome to show their solidarity inside or outside the stores this weekend, or by signing workers’ petition demanding a living wage and fair benefits.

Half Price Books workers in Roseville and St. Paul went public with their union drive in October 2021 after a round of layoffs that, workers said, were handled arbitrarily and left their stores with inadequate staffing. The union bug spread to Coon Rapids and St. Louis Park in the months that followed.

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

Half Price Books workers ready to bargain after victory in St. Louis Park

January 7, 2022 by

(Photo from MN Bookstore Workers United’s Facebook feed.)

In an election certified yesterday by the National Labor Relations Board, workers at Half Price Books in St. Louis Park won recognition of their union, joining workers at three other Twin Cities locations who voted to organize a month earlier.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663, which supported the organizing drive, said workers in St. Louis Park look forward to bargaining a contract with “livable wages, better working conditions and a seat at the table.”

Minneapolis-based Local 663 and UFCW Local 1189, based in the east metro and Duluth, have partnered on the groundbreaking union drive at the nationwide chain of booksellers. Workers at four of the Twin Cities’ six Half Price books locations, including Coon Rapids, Roseville and St. Paul, have now unionized, the first in the country to do so.

Each Half Price Books shop employs about 15 workers who are eligible to join the union.

Kristin Tamayo, a bookseller at the St. Louis Park store, said it’s exciting to be part of a “movement happening right now with booksellers and other members of the working class across the country.”

“We’re happy we organized a union so we can have protection of our jobs, benefits and equal treatment for all in our workplace,” Tamayo added. “Now we will have a voice at work and a seat at the table when it comes to making decisions that directly affect us and our wellbeing.”

Union members at the four stores will seek to bargain their first contracts jointly with Half Price Books. Talks are likely to begin this winter.

Those negotiations, like the organizing work that preceded them, will be led by Half Price Books workers themselves, Local 1189 representative Claire Van den Berghe said.

“From the start this has been a worker-led campaign where the workers call the shots,” she said. “They run their own social media, they make their own decisions, and we intend for bargaining to go the same way. It’s their voice at the table.”

The union drive has energized Half Price Books workers like Hanna Anderson, who works at the St. Paul store. She said that momentum will carry over into contract talks with the company.

“We’re excited to unionize because we’ve been working so hard throughout the pandemic and faced huge challenges – like low staffing levels, on-the-spot training, overwhelming workloads – all while risking COVID exposure every day we go into work.

“Through it all, we’ve stuck together. We all want to continue working at HPB, and it’s exactly because we enjoy working here that we want to unionize and make it a place that we can sustainably stay employed long term.”

Follow Half Price Books workers’ contract campaign on Facebook and Twitter.

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

Half Price Books workers in Roseville, St. Paul form unions

October 18, 2021 by

These Half Price Books workers fully support forming a union.

Workers at Half Price Books stores in St. Paul and Roseville marched on their bosses Thursday, demanding the bookseller recognize their union.

Afterward, several workers traveled to other Half Price Books locations in the metro, encouraging workers to join the union drive, supported by Local 1189 of the United Food and Commercial Workers and its sister local, Minneapolis-based UFCW Local 663.

Workers said they are joining together to bargain higher wages – currently they earn $12.50 per hour – and gain more say over working conditions that have worsened since stores reopened after pandemic shutdowns.

Laura Peña, who works in the St. Paul store, said management has cut staffing in half, leaving employees to do double the work.

“We take in a lot of books all day, and at first, when there was lower staffing, there was a restriction on how many (books) people could bring in to sell,” Peña said. “Then corporate kept ramping things up, telling us to take in more and more, but it’s not like we had any more staff to back the ramping up.”

Peña said workers also hope to amend a post-pandemic policy that makes all new hires probationary for 90 days, keeping them ineligible for benefits.

For many Half Price Books workers, the pandemic brought into focus both how little regard the company has for their concerns and how unsustainable their jobs have become, said Aaron Kerr, who has 24 years of experience working in Half Price Books stores.

“For years prior, we were really kind of just putting up with it, just accepting this as the way things are,” Kerr said. “And we would see so much turnover. People were saying, ‘I love this job, but I can’t afford to work here.’

“We all love our customers. We love being booksellers, and we want to continue being booksellers. We look forward to negotiating with Half Price Books to make our stores a great place to work and a great place for customers to come into.”

[Click here to sign a petition supporting Half Price Books workers’ organizing drive.]

Half Price books calls itself the nation’s largest family-owned retailer for new and used books, and successful organizing drives in Minnesota could give the UFCW a toehold in the chain of over 120 stores.

All 16 booksellers and shift leads at the Roseville store signed union cards, as did an overwhelming majority of employees in the St. Paul store, located in Highland Park.

Kerr and other Roseville employees began considering a union after surviving a round of layoffs that, to them, seemed unnecessary, given the availability of paycheck protection loans.

In May of this year, after the Center for Disease Control changed its masking guidelines, employees in Roseville sent a petition asking the company to hold off on lifting its in-store mask mandates. Half Price Books brushed it aside and lifted the mandate anyway.

“None of us wanted that,” Kerr said. “They lifted it without consulting the employees. They did it at a time when other big companies, like Target, were not.”

Half Price Books executives won’t so easily ignore workers’ petition for a union election. Perhaps by coincidence, the company’s district manager was in Highland Park when workers there marched on the boss, according to Peña.

“We were nervous, but I was glad we all had each other’s backs,” she said.

“We are prepared for the worst,” Kerr said. “But we’re already very organized, getting more organized and making more connections every day.”

UPDATE 10/19/21: Workers at a third Twin Cities store, in Coon Rapids, marched on their boss today, demanding recognition of their union.

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