In unionization push, Alamo Drafthouse workers cut to the chase

April 17, 2026 by

Workers at Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbury (photo courtesy CWA Local 7250)

The time it takes to organize a union is typically measured in months, if not years. Not so for workers at the Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbury, who voted March 27 to join Communications Workers (CWA) Local 7250 in a process that took a mere six weeks.

It was as quick an organizing drive as anyone at CWA could remember and, according to workers, an indication of just how miserable a new digital ordering system has made the Alamo Drafthouse experience for both employees and moviegoers.

“It really eliminates the guest-to-server interaction – the community that comes with being part of the Alamo,” support crew member Isabelle Hernandez, 22, said. “The team, the movies and even our regulars really make the Alamo as special as it is, and we don’t want to lose that.”

Alamo Drafthouse operates 40 cinemas across the U.S. that provide moviegoers with the big-screen experience in a bar-and-grill setting.

The corporation has been gradually introducing a new business model at its locations over the last year, replacing servers who take tableside food and drink orders with a mobile app.

That change came to the Woodbury location, which employs about 60 people, on March 3.

For workers, it’s meant reduced hours, with no guarantee of even one shift per week. And for former servers like Hernandez and Max Chitwood, who previously earned tips, it’s meant a pay cut. Instead of taking hushed orders in the theater – and earning tips from customers – they now run food and drinks from the kitchen to the tables and clean theaters between screenings.

Chitwood’s hourly wage increased from $13 to $22 per hour after the change, but she said it’s not enough to cover the loss of her tips.

“For a lot of the former servers, it’s cut our paychecks in half, at least,” Hernandez said.

Guests have noticed the change too. Phone use, previously forbidden, is now encouraged by a QR code at each table.

“Alamo’s big thing has always been no talking and no texting,” Hernandez said. “They play that before every single movie. It’s just not the Alamo that we used to know and love. There are so many times now that I’ve caught people on their phones who weren’t ordering food.”

Hernandez isn’t alone. An IndieWire review last week blasted the changes: “Once America’s most promising movie theater chain, the Alamo Drafthouse has become a QR-coded symbol of corporate ens***tification.”

Aware that other Alamo Drafthouse locations had organized unions with CWA, Woodbury workers reached out to Local 7250 in February after getting “offer sheets” from management outlining their new terms of employment.

Within 24 hours of obtaining authorization cards from the local, half of eligible workers at the theater had signed one. Within nine days, they had petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union election, with support from a supermajority of 72%.

“They told us we set a CWA record for fastest total time between taking the first steps toward unionizing to filing,” Chitwood, 24, said.

Alamo Drafthouse tried to pump the brakes on workers’ momentum in the month between filing their petition and voting.

The corporate office sent a representative to Minnesota to “watch us and talk to us about why the union wasn’t a good idea,” Hernandez said. And local managers attempted one-on-one communications with staff members to persuade them to vote against the union.

Both efforts, workers alleged, crossed the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The corporate representative was recalled, and two workers quit over private messages from local managers that made them uncomfortable.

“It was nothing explicitly bad or outright aggressive, just very passive-aggressive, and it made the work environment uncomfortable or unsafe for those workers who left,” Hernandez said. “They were both really good team members, and we miss them.”

Ultimately, workers voted 33-14 in favor of forming a union, with one challenged ballot.

When negotiations on a first contract begin, union members hope to address wages, staffing and, of course, the new business model. Hernandez said other bargaining units have pushed for a hybrid ordering system that offers guests a choice between the QR code and in-person service.

Chitwood said the goal is to improve the Alamo Drafthouse experience for everyone, adding that many moviegoers who have learned about the union drive have responded with “a resounding hell yes, good luck in bargaining.”

“It’s reflective of how united we are as a team and how much we care about our co-workers and even the company itself,” Hernandez added.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Research into union busting in MN nursing homes draws lawmaker scrutiny

April 17, 2026 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How is this OK?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Despite tough climate for organizing, unions notched gains in 2025

February 27, 2026 by

The number of American workers represented by unions grew to 16.5 million in 2025, its highest point in 16 years. Still, the gap between the share of workers who say they want a union and the share of workers with one remained stubbornly high.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union members in the workforce last month. It showed modest growth for unions both nationwide and in Minnesota, where 15.8% of workers were represented by unions in 2025, an increase of 1%.

Nationally, the rate of union representation increased by one-tenth of a point, to 11.2%. The total number of workers represented by unions grew by 463,000.

Labor leaders said the data underscores how difficult it remains to organize unions under current labor law. They pointed to the tension between current union density and recent survey data showing near-record highs in unions’ approval ratings.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, the nation’s highest-ranking union officer, said the increase in unionization last year reflects years of sustained effort among workers to organize and win elections – a lengthy process that is met with hostility in most workplaces.

“Billionaire bosses and union-busting politicians have tried to throw the kitchen sink at working people and their unions – slashing our jobs and rigging the rules to scare us out of organizing – but they are failing,” Shuler said in a response to the report.

Shuler took aim at the Trump administration for modeling an anti-union approach since the start of its second term, with mass layoffs and executive orders that have attempted to strip federal workers of their collective bargaining agreements.

She also noted that the government shutdown put a pause on National Labor Relations Board elections, further delaying the organizing process for thousands of workers.

“Workers have felt President Trump’s billionaire-first agenda in action and are hungry to take back their power,” Shuler said. “Workers know that the best check on a bad boss is a strong union contract. In 2026, workers will continue to organize in every corner of the country and build power to fight for the lives they deserve.”

Notable takeaways from the BLS report include:

• Signs of growth in the South, after a sustained push to organize in so-called “right to work” states. Nearly half of all union growth last year came from Southern states, with younger workers organizing at a rapid pace, too.

• Public workers are looking to unions, especially at the federal level. Union density among federal workers grew to over 31% – the largest single-year increase since 2011. Overall, the number of public-sector workers represented by a union grew by 236,000, or 36.4% of that workforce.

• Private-sector workers made organizing gains in health care, retail, education services and construction. North America’s Building Trades Unions reported gaining 4 over 47,000 new members across 14 crafts last year, despite widespread industry disruption. NABTU President Sean McGarvey cited “sound public policy,” in part, for the unions’ growth.

“The prior administration and Congress prioritized real investments in infrastructure and energy…” McGarvey said. “While the current administration has announced future foreign investments in the U.S., none have yet produced a single work hour for our members.

“Instead, cancellations, delays, withdrawn permits, withheld funds and policy uncertainty have jeopardized these anticipated domestic investments.”

• The number of Minnesota workers represented by unions increased from 394,000 to 431,000 last year. The state ranked 10th-highest for share of the workforce with union representation.

• Union members continued to out-earn their non-union peers. The median weekly earnings for all workers last year was $1,204. Union members had median weekly earnings of $1,487; for non-union workers the median was $1,174.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

U of M workers launch organizing drive: ‘If ever there was a time, it is now’

September 19, 2025 by

Michael Wilson, who works on grants and contracts in the School of Public Health, speaks during the launch of SEIU Local 284’s organizing drive. (SEIU photo)

The surge in union organizing on college campuses in Minnesota shows no sign of waning, as Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284 announced last month that the union had launched a campaign to bring together nearly 3,000 workers across five University of Minnesota campuses.

The bargaining unit would cover workers in four departments: information technology, marketing and communications, student-services, and grants and contracts.

Union leaders and worker-organizers announced the organizing push Sept. 9 on the Northrup Auditorium steps in Minneapolis. A union contract, they said, would provide workers with greater certainty at an uncertain time for higher-ed institutions like the U.

“We’ve all seen what the last six months have been like for workers across all industries – higher-education workers specifically,” Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said, adding that “the very existence of higher ed” has come under attack.

“If there was ever a time to come together in a union, it is now,” she added.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to bully colleges and universities with executive orders, legal threats and funding clawbacks.

U of M grants and contracts professional Michael Wilson, whose work supports research in the School of Public Health, said the federal funding landscape has experienced “a level of disruption unseen by any of my colleagues, young and old.”

Wilson and other U of M workers at the kickoff rally said they believe collective bargaining will put them in a stronger position to weather the radical changes in higher ed, as well as challenges unique to their departments.

“There are real people like me who are doing quality labor … and we are passionate about recreating the stability that (we) deserve and our entire society deserves,” Wilson said. “And we know that collectively bargaining a union contract will help provide clarity, transparency and stability long term.”

Workers said they will organize around four goals for their first contract: workplace democracy, career security, healthy workplaces and closing the salary gap with U of M’s administrators.

Those pay gaps persist, Labor Education staff member Amie Stager said, despite announcements of layoffs and budget cuts across the system.

“My job and the jobs of all my colleagues deserve to be good union jobs,” Stager added. “We all deserve dignity and respect in our workplace.”

More U of M jobs are becoming union jobs thanks, in part, to reforms passed by labor-endorsed state lawmakers in 2024 that extended bargaining rights to more university employees and allowed for smaller, more targeted bargaining units, making it easier to organize.

Some 1,000 resident physicians at the U’s flagship hospital formed a union earlier this year, and graduate student workers ratified their first union contract last winter. Other local schools, including Macalester College and Augsburg University, have seen successful union drives in recent years too.

Mitchel Kruchten recently gave up a union job at the U to take on more responsibility in the IT department – and explained why he regrets the move during the kickoff rally last month.

After clashing with a manager who made “comments about my character that I felt were deeply unprofessional,” Kruchten received a poor performance review. Later, the same boss mocked Kruchten’s request for time off as a “vacation” when he was, in fact, about to undergo surgery.

“I saw similar patterns with my colleagues, all talented people who came here with a desire to make the university a better place, but all left due to bullying and toxic behavior from a senior leader,” he said. “This is why a union is so important. If I had remained in AFSCME, I would have been entitled to a fair review and representation.”

Local 284 represents 10,000 support staff in K-12 schools across Minnesota, as well as adjunct faculty members at colleges and universities in the metro.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Legal Services staff look to increase transparency in first contract

September 19, 2025 by

SMRLS workers, joined by labor allies, support their bargaining team on Day 1 of negotiations.

Newly organized workers at Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services entered negotiations on a first contract Wednesday in St. Paul, less than four months after voting to form a union with Council 5 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Workers held a brief, morning rally with supporters outside SMRLS’s St. Paul offices before the union’s elected bargaining team met with management at Minnesota’s longest-standing legal aid nonprofit.

Sarah Palm, a senior staff attorney based in Albert Lea, said increasing transparency at SMRLS was a main driver of the unionization push that began over a year ago, and it remains a priority in bargaining – particularly when it comes to wages.

“Nobody really knew what our pay scale is,” Palm said. “But we would like to get our wages to keep increasing. We’ve never had a COLA (cost-of-living adjustment).”

The union also hopes to establish basic rights in the workplace, codify benefits and remote-work rules, and expand holidays to reflect the cultural diversity in its bargaining unit, Palm said.

Bargaining could move quickly. The union’s negotiating team had sent management a full contract proposal before the two sides even sat down.

Negotiators modeled their proposal on existing union contracts at other legal aid providers, including Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid. Workers there formed a union with Council 5 in January 2024 and settled their first contract, with 14% wage increases, last June.

SMRLS’s new “wall-to-wall” bargaining unit brings together over 70 workers, including staff attorneys, support staff, accountants and development professionals at the organization, which provides services to low-income residents of 33 counties in southern Minnesota, including the Twin Cities’ east and south metro, as well as agricultural workers throughout Minnesota and North Dakota.

Paralegals at SMRLS have long been unionized.

Mario Solis, a member of the bargaining team who works as an attorney in SMRLS’ Agricultural Worker Project in Moorhead, was a member of the paralegal bargaining unit for nearly 10 years before obtaining his law degree last year. Working under a union contract, he said, is better.

“It’s a lot of security – this beneficial state of understanding your rights, what you’re entitled to and what your benefits are. And I hope this doesn’t come up, but if things go badly I’d like to think there’s going to be solidarity among the workers and we’ll have an understanding of how things should be dealt with.

“I felt that security in the paralegal union, and I miss it. So I’m excited to get that back.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Joining MNA a ‘proud moment’ for Hazelden Betty Ford nurses

February 4, 2025 by

Newly unionized Hazelden staff members include (L to R) Jody Burton, an LPN, and registered nurses Crystal Olson and Meaghan Albrecht. (photo courtesy MNA)

Nurses at the esteemed Hazelden Betty Ford addiction treatment center in Chisago County voted to unionize last month, part of a recent organizing surge among health care workers in the Twin Cities area.

The new bargaining unit at Hazelden brings together 45 registered nurses and 11 licensed practical nurses, who voted in separate elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board to join the Minnesota Nurses Association. About 75% of voting nurses supported the union drive.

Detox nurse Meaghan Albrecht called the union vote a “proud moment” for the tight-knit unit at Hazelden’s Center City campus, where nurses moved quickly to form a bargaining unit in response to benefit cuts announced by management last fall.

“Everyone cares deeply for each other and our patients, so it was not difficult to be unified, especially since this change was so significant and impacted so many people within our department,” Albrecht said. “Even those nurses who were not directly affected were impacted by the loss of morale on the team.”

Albrecht, who has worked at Hazelden for over six years, was among roughly 130 employees at the facility who were poised to lose their health care and other benefits after management moved to exclude anyone working under a .75 full-time equivalent (FTE), up from .6 previously.

The announcement caught Albrecht and other nurses off guard. They reconnected with the MNA, which had supported an organizing drive two years earlier that fizzled out before reaching an election.

This time around, Hazelden nurses saw the process through the finish line, and they will soon begin locking down their benefits – among other terms of employment – in the form of a union contract.

“Having MNA representing us gives us a seat at the table so we can make decisions about our wages, benefits, and safe working conditions,” Hazelden LPN Jody Burton said.

Minnesota-based Hazelden merged with the Betty Ford Center in 2014 to create the nation’s largest nonprofit alcohol and drug rehab provider.

The foundation was not supportive of nurses’ organizing campaign, Albrecht said.

“There were a lot of meetings held and discussions with the nursing team regarding the ‘negative impact’ that a union would bring to the organization,” she said. “They felt as though it would sever relationships, and they did not like the idea of a third party coming in.

“But we are the union. The nurses brought it in. We aren’t a third party.”

As Hazelden nurses’ focus shifts from organizing to bargaining a first contract, they will focus on fairness, inclusivity and transparency in the workplace, Albrecht said, as well as longstanding concerns around sustainable workloads.

“One of our goals is to foster meaningful dialogue with Hazelden management to create policies that prioritize staff well-being and patient care,” she said. “We think this is an opportunity to build a more just environment for nurses and patients alike.”

Nearly 700 health care workers in the Twin Cities area have organized unions in the last two months, led by a landmark victory for the MNA at North Memorial’s Maple Grove Hospital.

The total also includes nurses at Hazelden and 16 catheter-lab nurses at United Hospital, who organized with the MNA. And it includes members of the nursing staff at The Emeralds of St. Paul, a long-term care facility operated by Monarch Healthcare Management, where the union vote was a unanimous 27-0 in favor of joining SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa.

Nearly 100 more health care workers – unit coordinators at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park – were scheduled to take a union vote Feb. 7, after a majority of eligible workers filed a petition to join SEIU Healthcare.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , ,

Minnesota unions grew by 23,000 members last year

February 3, 2025 by

Minnesota unions made membership gains in 2024, according to an annual report released last month by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, union density remained about the same.

The agency’s survey results estimate that Minnesota’s labor movement welcomed about 23,000 union members last year, increasing the total number of union members to 379,000. Minnesota’s union density increased from 13.3% of the total workforce to 14.2%.

The results reflect increased organizing activity in recent years among local health care, retail, cultural and hospitality workers, as well as public-sector employees.

Minnesota-based AFSCME Council 5 recently announced that the public-service union welcomed over 5,000 new members in 2024, and the Minnesota Nurses Association said it has added 1,400 new members in the last year.

Notable organizing victories last year included workers at First Avenue’s clubs in the Twin Cities joining UNITE HERE Local 17. Front-of-house workers at two prominent Minneapolis theater companies voted to join IATSE Local 13. Grocery workers at Mississippi Market stores in St. Paul joined United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189. And over 4,000 graduate workers in the University of Minnesota system ratified their first union contract in December.

Those gains kept Minnesota on the opposite path of its neighbor to the east.

In Wisconsin, where lawmakers have passed a right-to-work law and severely curtailed public-sector bargaining rights over the last 15 years, union density slipped by a full percentage point, to 6.4% last year.

Minnesota also outperformed the national trend.

The nation’s union membership rate was 9.9% in 2024, little changed from the prior year, and the number of workers who belong to unions fell slightly to 14.3 million.

The BLS report notes that the number of union members when it first began collecting comparable data, in 1983, was 17.7 million, and 20.1% of American workers were union members then.

But union members continued to earn more than their non-union peers in 2024. Non-union workers’ median weekly earnings were 85% of earnings reported by union workers last year, a weekly union advantage of nearly $200.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said the BLS statistics “don’t begin to tell the real story of the desire workers have to join a union,” pointing to a surge in petitions for union elections filed with the National Labor Relations Board since 2021.

Successful organizing campaigns at Starbucks, Whole Foods and Amazon – and at foreign-owned automakers like Volkswagen in the South – show Americans have an appetite for collective bargaining. But too often, Shuler said, union-busting employers exploit toothless labor laws to stifle their workers’ voice.

“There are 60 million workers who would join a union today if given the opportunity, but between broken labor law and corporate bosses like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos engaging in often illegal union-busting every year with little consequence, far too few get that chance. It’s time for change,” Shuler said, citing an AFL-CIO survey taken last year.

Unions have called on federal lawmakers to pass measures like the PRO Act that would make it easier for workers to form unions and stiffen the penalties employers face for breaking labor law.

“We call on the Trump administration to live up to its campaign promises to support workers by prioritizing fixing America’s broken labor law through the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act,” Shuler said. “These bills would finally update our archaic, broken laws and give workers what we so desperately want: a free and fair shot at joining a union on the job.”

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

Solidarity in the skies: In St. Paul, Delta workers rally together for a union

February 3, 2025 by

MSP-based Delta flight attendants Jarrod Anderson and Becca Mertes sing “Solidarity Forever” with AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson (R).

One of the largest organizing drives in the country got a boost in St. Paul last month, as Delta Air Lines flight attendants and ramp, cargo and tower workers pushed closer to a union election at the world’s most profitable carrier.

Supporters spilled out of a crowded union hall at the St. Paul Labor Center on Jan. 25 during a fiery rally organized by two unions, the Machinists (IAM) and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. Together, they are working to organize a combined 48,000 Delta workers.

Speakers included elected officials, union leaders, community allies and Delta workers, who said their campaign is gaining ground despite fierce pushback – and alleged union-busting – from management.

Rob Lavigne, a baggage handler with 14 years of experience at the airline, called Delta’s attempts to intimidate its own workers shameful, noting that 80% of workers in the airline industry – including Delta’s own pilots – enjoy the security of a union contract.

“Delta, you made $4.6 billion,” Lavigne said, a reference to the company’s 2023 earnings. “You can afford to make us the industry leaders the way that we made you the industry leaders.”

In addition to locking down pay raises and union benefits, many Delta workers at the rally said they hope to bargain for better work rules and procedures, especially around absences.

Right now, Delta’s sick-time policy is that it doesn’t have a sick-time policy, according to both flight attendants and ramp workers who attended the rally.

“It’s a gray area right now because it’s up to your manager’s discretion how many times you can call out before being penalized,” Minneapolis-based flight attendant Hunter Lipinski said. “I’ve known people who have provided a doctor’s note and have still been penalized.”

“I’ve watched a good amount of favoritism over the years,” baggage handler Pat Gores, a nine-year Delta veteran, said. “It’s like, if you’re an old drinking buddy of your manager’s, you’re OK? No way, I want fairness and equal treatment for all workers.”

Adding insult to injury, Delta is part of an industry group bankrolling a lawsuit to prevent Minnesota-based employees from accessing benefits under the state’s new earned sick and safe time law. The company joined nine other airlines in a lawsuit seeking an exemption from the law in December.

Another gray area that Delta flight attendants hope to clarify in a union contract is scheduling. Becca Mertes, who works out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said Delta flight attendants lag behind their peers at other carriers when it comes to compensation when cancelations and delays wreak havoc on their work schedules.

Delta management can extend a flight attendant’s one-day shift by multiple days, Mertes said, “and all you brought with was a pair of underwear.” It’s particularly difficult for flight attendants with children or pets.

Delta flight attendants and ramp, cargo and tower workers rallied with community supporters, including U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, at the St. Paul Labor Center on Jan. 25.

“That can happen at any other airline too, but in two and a half years at WestJet Airlines, I never got worked into my days off, not once,” she said. “It’s happened several times at Delta, too many to count.”

Community supporters at the rally, including U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who represents Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District, praised workers in the room for joining together to improve conditions at Delta – and across the airline industry.

McCollum told union supporters that her mother once worked as a flight attendant, before the airline moved her to the ticket counter when she announced she was getting married. Even that job was no longer an option after she got pregnant, McCollum said.

“I fly two times a week, and I always feel safe in a Delta plane,” she said. “I see you. I see my mother in you when you walk down the aisle… You deserve respect and fair compensation for the work you do.”

McCollum said she brings that message into her frequent meetings with Delta lobbyists in Washington, D.C., too.

Mertes, Lavigne and other Delta workers active in the organizing drives said they hope to vote on union representation by the summer. For that to happen, the unions will need to demonstrate to the National Mediation Board that they have collected signed authorization cards from a majority of eligible workers.

In a quirk of federal labor law, the cards expire after one year, which creates an administrative headache for organizers.

“For two and a half years we’ve been at this, and I believe if union cards were good for two years, I wouldn’t be speaking here today,” Lavigne said. “We would have had a union on the property last May.”

Workers like Lipinski left the rally feeling more confident that day would come.

“Seeing all this support, it gives the feeling of, ‘we can do this,’” Lipinski said. “It’s our turn to have a seat at the table.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

Unions call out Delta for ‘unethical and illegal anti-union activities’

June 12, 2024 by

Union supporters rallied near Delta’s employee parking lot, near Terminal 2 at MSP International Airport. The Machinists union, which is supporting the union effort among ramp workers at the airline, organized the event.

BLOOMINGTON – Delta Air Lines is the only major U.S. carrier with a mostly non-union workforce, but baggage handlers, flight attendants and mechanics at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are looking to change that.

Delta employees based at MSP are leading a nationwide campaign to bring together over 50,000 frontline workers into three unions: the Machinists (IAM), the Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) and the Teamsters.

MSP is among Delta’s operational hubs, and it has been a hotbed of union support since the “Organize and Fly Together” campaign began in November 2022.

During a rally with the Machinists union near Terminal 2 last month, MSP-based baggage workers projected that 80% of eligible employees at their job site would sign union cards before year’s end.

Some local union activists, like cargo lead Miles Dousette, are even traveling on their own time to other airports, where they join organizing rallies and go door to door to ask fellow Delta workers to sign union cards.

“It’s a cause we all believe in, we all want to be a part of,” Dousette said. “And we know we can win.”

Management, Delta workers say, has responded to the organizing drive with a relentless union-busting campaign, cracking down on pro-union speech and flooding the workplace with disinformation. Nabil Kablaoui, a Delta ramp agent, said he feels like supervisors are trying to intimidate workers at MSP.

“They’ve stood behind workers who are talking about a union,” Kablaoui said. “I’ve seen a manager take pro-union fliers out of people’s hands or out of their bags on tables in our break room, where we should have free movement.

“They might not seem large, but especially to new workers, who are maybe a little nervous about these things, that’s going to scare them off from their legal right to a union.”

Leaders of the three international unions behind the organizing drive accuse Delta of crossing the line – both legally and ethically – in trying to remain mostly union free. “Delta has consistently and unabashedly violated our federally protected right to organize,” read a flier handed out during the rally May 29.

The allegations have drawn attention from several members of Congress, including Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District.

In a March 2024 letter, Craig urged Delta CEO Ed Bastian to enter into a neutrality agreement with unions that would prohibit managers from engaging in “pre-election activities that influence workers’ freedom to form a union” – activities that could run afoul of federal labor laws.

“Unfortunately, I have heard from my constituents regarding Delta’s history of deploying union-busting tactics, including distributing anti-union literature … and hosting an anti-union website citing ‘unions’ empty promises,’” Craig wrote. “These actions are hostile to workers’ rights, and I urge you to commit to implementing a neutrality agreement with regard to these union organizing efforts.”

Although workers at the Machinists rally were skeptical that Delta would commit to remaining neutral, the facts, they said, are on their side.

Delta is the most profitable airline in the U.S., but many working groups lag their peers at other domestic carriers in pay and benefits. The one group that doesn’t? Members of the Air Line Pilots Association International union.

“Delta makes 40% of the industry’s profits, but we are not the highest paid, we do not have the most vacation time and our health care plan has changed three times in three years,” baggage handler Pat Gores said. “That is unacceptable for industry leaders. Our pilots are the best paid in the industry, and do you know why? Because they have a union contract.”

“We’re not out here asking for the whole pie, just a whole piece,” Dousette added. “We’re tired of fighting for the crust. We just want our fair share.”

– 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: , , , , ,
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