SEIU members strike at five Twin Cities nursing homes

April 20, 2026 by

Workers picket outside The Estates at St. Louis Park on Day 1 of the strike.

Picket lines went up at 7 a.m. today outside five Twin Cities nursing homes, as about 300 union members launched a 72-hour strike for fair wages and respect.

The bargaining units, represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, are in limited negotiations with the employers, under to a wage-reopener clause in their contract. But management has shown no interest in bargaining, union officers say.

“The employer came in with only one number, 2%, and walked out,” Executive Vice President Rasha Ahmad Sharif said during a press conference outside The Estates of St. Louis Park. “That was their last, best and final offer – immediately.”

The union has filed charges of bad-faith bargaining with the National Labor Relations Board.

On the picket line, union members said they felt stung by the employers’ decision to pay high-priced replacement workers from out of state rather than settle a fair wage increase with the workers who provide daily care to their residents.

“We get low pay and heavy, heavy, client (loads),” Juanita Campbell, a licensed practical nurse with 23 years of experience at the St. Louis Park facility, said. “And we don’t have enough staff. They don’t respect us.”

Juanita Campbell said workers’ pay doesn’t match the heavy client load at The Estates, where she has worked for 23 years.

In addition to St. Louis Park, Estates workers are on strike at Roseville, Fridley and Excelsior locations. Union members at Cerenity Senior Care at Humboldt in St. Paul also are on strike.

Striking workers plan to rally at the Capitol on Tuesday and return to their sites for picketing Wednesday. Supporters are welcome.

While employers in the nursing-home industry pinch pennies at the bargaining table, many are also bankrolling two lawsuits seeking to disband the state’s new Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board.

“It is frustrating that (employers) seem unwilling to support us while we care for residents,” Jared Mitiga, a registered nurse at St. Louis Park, said. “It felt like they slammed the door shut before we could even get started. It’s especially frustrating that they claim they can’t give wage increases when the industry is spending money on all this other stuff.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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

HealthPartners workers strike at Stillwater Medical Group

July 8, 2025 by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Workers walk the picket line at HealthPartners Stillwater Medical Group.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

OPEIU members decry ‘culture of fear’ at HealthPartners, set May 5 strike deadline

April 29, 2025 by

Members of Local 12 held informational picketing outside HealthPartners’ headquarters in Bloomington last November.

For the second time since negotiations began last September, members of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 12 have warned HealthPartners that they intend to strike unless the two sides make meaningful progress toward a new contract.

The union, which represents about 1,000 workers across the Twin Cities, is planning a 10-day strike, beginning May 5.

Union leaders said picketing would touch all 31 HealthPartners facilities, including its headquarters in Bloomington and local clinics, where union members staff the check-in desks and work in back-office positions like scheduling, claims and accounting. The union was arranging a “click-it line” for members in telework positions.

Local 12’s bargaining team scrapped plans for a three-day strike in March after HealthPartners negotiators improved their economic proposal. But progress has stalled since then, representative Cesar Montufar said during a press conference April 18.

HealthPartners’ lowest-paid workers, he said, “are fed up, and they’re ready to go.”

OPEIU’s bargaining team has pushed hard for wage increases to keep up with inflation, pointing to a Local 12 analysis that estimates members have lost $3.50 per hour in buying power since their last contract took effect three years ago.

HealthPartners’ initial offer of 0.25% annual raises sparked outrage across the bargaining unit. The offer has since increased to 4%.

But bargaining team members said that pay increases given to executives like CEO Andrea Walsh, whose compensation grew from $1.4 million in 2017 to $3.8 million in 2023, prove the not-for-profit organization can do better.

“These executives are drawing the line for our members at 4%,” Montufar said. “That’s 4% for someone trying to survive on $30,000 a year, but $400,000 raises for the executives? That is the definition of corporate greed.”

Members of Local 12’s bargaining team are also demanding accountability for what they described as an increasingly hostile work environment.

At the press conference, current workers and union representatives alleged that HealthPartners has retaliated against union activists, used aggressive discipline to push veteran employees into lower-paying positions and established a “culture of fear” under Walsh’s leadership.

A 26-year veteran of HealthPartners, Janell Kelly said she recently took a “huge pay cut” to transfer into the dental clinic. The move came after a supervisor in her previous department, during a one-on-one meeting, chided Kelly because she “wasn’t smiling anymore” after the unexpected death of her son.

“My supervisor was making my life miserable,” Kelly said. “I knew that job well and was confident in doing it, I just couldn’t take the way I was treated.”

In the dental clinic, Kelly has encountered management issues of a different kind.

“When my supervisor found out I was on the bargaining team, she began a campaign to fire me, including fabricating evidence and secretly making changes to my timecard in an attempt to steal wages,” Kelly said. “Their behavior is unacceptable.”

Kelly isn’t the only HealthPartners worker to chafe at a changing attitude among management. Union representative Kelsie Morgan described a trend of “more punitive discipline than legitimate corrective action” doled out to members she represents over the last decade.

HealthPartners fired one probationary employee because she “smelled like cigarettes and perfume and didn’t adhere to a break schedule,” Morgan said. But when she followed up with the worker, Morgan heard a much different story: she was in the middle of trying to leave an abusive relationship.

“Work was her safe space,” Morgan said. “The day she was not adhering to her break schedule was the day she was working to get on the phone with her lawyer and find help with her situation.”

Paula Moyer, a union steward, recalled attending disciplinary meetings with a co-worker who was awaiting surgery for a congenital spine condition. Rather than offering compassion and support, Moyer said, her manager wrote the worker up for missing the window to report excused absences by mere minutes.

“You think most people would kind of want to help, you know?” Moyer said. “Maybe bring over a hot dish. But no, not this supervisor.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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

After insulting wage offer from HealthPartners, office staff vote to authorize strike

February 10, 2025 by

HealthPartners workers held a strike-authorization vote at the Carpenters’ union hall in St. Paul.

Members of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 12 who work at HealthPartners have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, the union announced Saturday, with support from over 98% of voting members.

The union represents about 1,000 workers at 31 HealthPartners facilities in the Twin Cities. Union members staff the check-in desks at clinics and work in back-office positions like scheduling, claims and accounting.

Members of Local 12’s bargaining team said they could file a 10-day notice of their intent to strike as early as this week, depending on the outcome of negotiations scheduled today and Tuesday.

The union began talks with HealthPartners in September, and negotiations have continued past the previous contract’s expiration date Nov. 30.

The two sides remain far apart on wages. After initially offering annual raises of just 0.25% over the next three years, management came back to the table last month with proposed 2.5% increases. HealthPartners also reduced its proposed cut to workers’ health care benefits, from a 500% increase in costs to a 150% increase, according to Local 12.

Those are steps in the right direction, union members said during a strike vote in St. Paul last Wednesday, but not enough to settle the contract.

Denise Dilla, a scheduler who works at HealthPartners’ Specialty Center in St. Paul, called this round of bargaining the worst she has experienced in her 27 years working for the health care provider. Management’s initial wage proposals amounted to pocket change, she said, and insulted many rank-and-file members.

“I can’t afford to strike, but I can’t afford to take their proposal either,” Dilla said.

HealthPartners also has demanded changes to Local 12 members’ seniority rights and sought to remove long-standing provisions, like sick-and-safe-time benefits, from the contract.

Chaytia Burnett, a clinical assistant at the clinic in Woodbury, said bargaining team members have put their calculators to work, comparing HealthPartners’ meager contract proposals to the compensation increases CEO Andrea Walsh has seen in recent years.

Walsh earns about $3.6 million annually, according to the most recent nonprofit filings available.

“The employer is making it seem that we’re asking for too much and that they are broke, which is not true, when the CEO makes $1,800 hour, and most of our members don’t make that much in a two-week pay period,” Burnett said.

Local 12 members gave HealthPartners a glimpse of what a strike might look like during informational picketing at all 31 facilities last November. Burnett, who works two jobs to make ends meet, said union members will look to the labor community for support if they are forced to walk off the job.

“Some of us are losing our homes, staying in our cars, worrying about where our next meal is coming from, and worrying about our families and children being fed,” Burnett said. “This strike has a lot more on the table that we’re willing to fight for. This strike stands for human dignity and respect toward members who are putting everything on the line.”

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

Sun Country flight attendants demand wages, work rules to match industry peers

January 17, 2024 by

Sun Country flight attendants, members of Teamsters Local 120, held informational picketing Jan. 10 at MSP Airport.

Nearly five years into their campaign for a new union contract, flight attendants at Minnesota-based Sun Country Airlines are still fighting for their fair share of the company’s growing profits.

Members of Teamsters Local 120, which represents about 600 flight attendants at Sun Country, held informational picketing Jan. 10 outside Terminal 2 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, showing support for their bargaining team just weeks after its first round of mediation with the airline.

The two sides, who began their most recent round of contract talks in 2019, filed jointly for assistance from a federal mediator after flight attendants voted overwhelmingly to reject a “best and final” offer from Sun Country last May, with 96% of participating union members voting “no.”

Union negotiator and veteran flight attendant Tanya Devito said her union introduced “realistic” proposals during the first mediated session that would establish pay and work rules on par with flight attendants at Frontier, Allegiant and other airlines comparable to Sun Country.

“They can do with it what they want, but this group is not going to accept anything less than that,” Devito said. “We would rather have shot for the moon, but we didn’t. We put in realistic expectations that we need in order to get a (tentative agreement) voted in.”

Specifically, Sun Country flight attendants are looking to advance through their wage scale faster in a new contract.

Devito, who has 32 years of experience with the airline, is still two years shy of Sun Country’s top wage rate. Meanwhile, flight attendants at Allegiant Air reach top scale in 12 years. At Spirit Airlines it takes 13.

“We’re losing good people,” said Elaine Rishovd, a flight attendant and chief steward for Local 120. “Many junior flight attendants, they maybe last a year or two before they’re gone. They can’t live on the salary they pay here. They could be three or four years into the scale here, and within a year or two they’re going to be beyond that someplace else.”

Additionally, Local 120 members want contract language that will lower the cap on “duty hours” they can be required to work during a shift. Currently, Sun Country can schedule flight attendants to travel up to 22 hours on a shift, but that doesn’t mean they’re earning wages the entire time.

“We check in one hour before flight to do our pre-checks while passengers get on, and we’re not getting paid,” Rishovd said. “Maybe there’s a weather or a mechanical delay. We do not get paid until that door closes. On the other end, when the door opens, we don’t get paid anymore. There are so many hours when we are on duty but we’re not getting paid.”

Sometimes Sun Country flight attendants will work four flights in shift that lasts 14 duty hours – and collect just six hours’ worth of wages, said 27-year-veteran flight attendant LaNeia Huberty.

“Those days are really hard, really rough,” Huberty said. “And technically, we’re there for safety. You don’t want your flight crew exhausted. We need to be sharp.”

The so-called “hometown airline” can afford to do better by its flight attendants, too, Huberty and other members of the bargaining team said.

Sun Country has grown steadily since emerging from the pandemic travel disruption and reported record profits in 2023 – thanks, in part, to sacrifices made by its flight attendants, who estimate that they saved the company $4 million by taking voluntary, unpaid leaves after the 2020 outbreak.

“We’ve always put ourselves last, always thought about the company and if it’s doing good or bad,” Huberty said. “We want Sun Country to be here and grow, but we want to be compensated. It’s time for us to get paid.”

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Organizing, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , ,

Metro Transit workers vote to authorize strike

September 13, 2023 by

Members of ATU Local 1005 rallied in July outside a Met Council committee meeting in Minneapolis.

Metro Transit workers have voted overwhelmingly to authorize their union leaders to call a strike, holding firm to their demand for wages that outpace inflation.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, which represents about 2,000 operators, mechanics and other workers in contract negotiations with the Twin Cities’ transit agency, reported that 94% of members who voted Sept. 10-11 supported strike authorization.

Bargaining began in March, and Local 1005 President Ryan Timlin said Metro Transit’s first offer left a lot of union members “very pissed off.” The agency has proposed a 3% raise in the contract’s first year and 2% in the following two years, according to Timlin.

That’s a similar wage package to the one approved by union members in their previous three-year contract, which expired July 31. But with inflation outpacing their earnings, transit workers are looking for more this time around.

Potential new hires are doing the same, Timlin said. The agency has struggled to hire despite plans to expand the local transit system, with Local 1005’s membership down about 400 since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“Their offer isn’t reaching market value,” Timlin said. “And among our members, there’s still a lot of anger about how management worked from home during COVID. Everything’s been building.”

Local 1005 members voted a year ago to make a “COLA +1” wage formula their union’s top priority at the bargaining table in 2023. Rather than fixed raises, the proposed contract language would determine wage increases by adding 1% to the current rate of inflation.

“It gives us a safety net in this uncertain economy,” Timlin said of the proposal. “But the members ultimately will have the final say.”

ATU’s bargaining team is also seeking a higher shift differential for workers clocking overnight hours, as well as new health and safety protections for operators exposed to drug use on the transit line or dangerous weather during mid-route shift changes.

“Drivers who do relief, they go to a specific bus stop and wait until the bus pulls up to take it over,” Timlin explained. “We’re trying to get management to agree to provide a vehicle they can drive between Metro Transit garages and those relief points, to reduce any safety issues that might pop up.”

Local 1005 and Metro Transit have bargaining sessions scheduled Sept. 22 and Oct. 5.

Before a strike could begin, the two sides would have to try mediation. The union must also give Metro Transit 10 days’ notice of any work stoppage.

Metro Transit workers last went on strike in 2004, shutting down bus service in the Twin Cities for about six weeks.

Both locally and nationally, unions are taking strike votes to show employers that their bargaining teams have the support of rank-and-file members – and to pressure management to meet the union’s demands. Timlin said ATU members “have been paying attention” to historic contract gains made by Teamsters at UPS and other unions.

“Our message to Metro Transit is let’s get back to the table and really start negotiating,” Timlin said.

Filed Under: Organizing, 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: , , , , , ,

For Mia workers, fresh approach to bargaining delivers big gains

March 15, 2023 by

Workers picketed the Mia in February. (photo courtesy OPEIU Local 12)

After their first public contract campaign in recent memory, union members who work at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) ratified a new agreement yesterday that will raise wages by $4 per hour across the board over the next two and a half years.

The contract covers about 120 members of Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU) Local 12 who work in a variety of roles throughout the museum. Their previous contract expired in January.

Negotiators reached a tentative agreement on the new pact Friday, March 3, and union members called off informational picketing planned each of the following two days – opening weekend of a new ticketed exhibit at the Mia.

Local 12 steward Aaron Barger, an IT systems administrator and member of the union’s bargaining team, said the scheduled action put pressure on management to reach a deal.

“It’s not something you want to have at the beginning of a new show,” he said of the picketing.

In addition to wage increases, union members won new language enshrining progressive discipline in the contract. They held the line on the existing health care split with management, added new curator positions to the bargaining unit and gained flexibility with regard to certain paid holidays when the museum is open to the public.

“It treats Black Friday, New Year’s Day and Juneteenth as optional holidays,” Barger said. “So if you want to come in and work those days you can, but if you observe Eid or a Jewish high holiday or something else of more significance to you, then you can do that.”

Union members made a strategic decision as began in November 2022 not to prioritize paid family leave in contract talks, Barger said. DFL lawmakers had won a “trifecta” of control over the state House, Senate and governor’s office, improving the chances that legislation creating a statewide insurance pool to extend family and medical leave to workers statewide will pass this legislative session.

Instead, Local 12’s bargaining team made wage increases its top priority, and they became the biggest sticking point as talks progressed.

Management came to the table expecting “bargaining as usual,” Barger said. But Mia workers had watched as workers at other museums in the Twin Cities and across the country joined together in the wake of the pandemic, creating unions and fighting for improved wages, benefits and working conditions.

“We are one of the oldest art museum unions in the country, at least 40 years old,” said Barger, who has worked at the Mia for four-plus years. “I think this is the first time we’ve held a picket since this union was founded.

“It’s almost like the union had become a formality or just a legal entity. But after COVID hit and there was a change in (Mia) leadership, people kind of woke up to the fact that we have to adopt more activist tactics.”

That meant informational picketing in February, a button campaign, an online petition and a switch from closed to open bargaining, which allowed union negotiators to share management’s proposals with fellow members.

“We could report back and say, ‘Here’s what the boss is saying. Here’s what they think of you,’” Barger said. “Your best organizer really becomes the boss.”

With a newly active and engaged membership, Barger added, the Mia bargaining unit is in a better position to build on its gains in future negotiations.

“The union is not a separate entity from you,” he said. “You are your union, and the people at the table are there to represent you. Ultimately, the work doesn’t happen without the workers.”

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

School board ducks meeting after striking workers plan to show

February 15, 2023 by

Laurie Potthoff, a food service worker at Hastings High School, speaks during an impromptu union rally after school board members canceled their scheduled meeting.

Striking food service workers in Hastings have a lot of questions for members of the local school board, who were scheduled to have a public meeting this afternoon.

Why won’t the district come back to the bargaining table?

Why does the superintendent deserve a 6% raise when 2% is the best he can offer food service workers?

What’s changed since the height of the pandemic, when frontline staff were praised as heroes for helping deliver thousands of meals to the community?

Unfortunately for workers, the board abruptly canceled its noon meeting, avoiding a face-to-face encounter with workers like Laurie Potthoff, a high school cook who spoke during a rally outside Kennedy Elementary instead of before the board.

“We are ready to settle this strike, and we are ready to go back and feed the kids. But the board won’t meet with us,” said Potthoff, who has six years of experience with the district. “Come on, school board. Bring us back to the table.”

In bargaining, the district’s negotiators have held firm that most food service workers should accept 35- to 40-cent raises. If the district’s elected leaders share that position, they should look workers in the eye and say as much, Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“I have a message for the Hastings School Board,” Gibbons said. “Shame on you. Shame on you for not coming to the table and not coming to this meeting and talking to these workers.”

Local 284 represents the 35 food service workers who have been on strike since Feb. 7.

Workers have refused to accept the district’s offer to raise their wages by 2%, with a one-time bonus. Union members want the wage scale increased by $3 per hour, and they say one-time bonuses won’t do enough to keep Hastings’ pay competitive with other districts in the area.

Starting pay for food service workers in the nearby South Washington County School District is $16.50, compared to $3.85 per hour in Hastings, where some workers with three years of experience are making just $15.05 per hour.

Hastings workers also accuse the district of inequitable treatment when it comes to ensuring a minimum number of work hours, and they are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums.

Striking food service workers picket outside Kennedy Elementary in Hastings.

The two sides, who had been working with a state mediator, haven’t met since Feb. 2, despite requests from the union to resume talks.

Instead of sitting down with workers, school administrators attempted last week to bully SEIU members back to work, sending out letters that warned they would lose their health care benefits and citing “End of Employment” as the reason.

It is illegal to fire striking workers under Minnesota public sector labor law. Members who have paid into their health insurance should have access to their benefits through the end of the month, Local 284 Executive Director Kelly Gibbons said.

“The district should be coming to the table to find a fair deal to get these incredible workers back on the job feeding Hastings students,” Gibbons added. “Instead they are sending letters that are misleading and possibly even illegal, hoping to scare our members into accepting a contract.”

Gibbons, a former school food service worker herself, said she hasn’t seen “such solidarity and commitment from a group of workers in a long time.”

The Hastings community, meanwhile, has shown striking workers overwhelming support, with multiple deliveries of food and drinks to the picket line. The feeling is mutual, according to Potthoff, who said she and her co-workers are ready to “get the warm meals back into our students’ bellies so they have the nourishment they need.”

“A frozen sandwich does not cut it,” she added.

The school board’s next scheduled public meeting is Wednesday, Feb. 22.

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

Food service workers in Hastings schools set Feb. 7 strike date

January 26, 2023 by

Hastings food service workers plan to strike Feb. 7. (SEIU Local 284 photo)

Food service workers today put the Hastings public school district on notice of their intent to strike Feb. 7 unless the two sides reach agreement on a new union contract before then.

“We’re united, and we’re ready to strike if the district won’t pay us what we’re worth and stop nickel-and-diming us about our working hours and snow days,” said Sara Rapp, a cook at Hastings High School and member of the union’s bargaining team.

Contract negotiations between Independent School District 200 and the 35-person bargaining unit, represented by Service Employees (SEIU) Local 284, began last June and later entered mediation. The previous, two-year contract expired June 30.

No bargaining dates are currently on the calendar between now and Feb. 7, according to Local 284.

The two sides remain far apart when it comes to wages, Local 284 contract organizer Hal Goetz said, with workers holding out for an increase roughly double what the district is offering.

Most workers in the bargaining unit earn between $15 and just over $18 per hour. A few are paid less, and head cooks’ pay scale runs about $7 per hour higher, Goetz said.

Union members also are fighting to maintain affordable dental and family insurance premiums, and for language ensuring a minimum number of work hours. A union statement said workers “have been clear that any settlement needs to include a fair wage increase to combat the impact of historic inflation and maintain stability through regular hours and health insurance benefits.”

Workers voted in December to authorize a strike, and they are asking supporters to sign onto a letter to the superintendent and school board members at seiu.mn/hastings.

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,
Next Page»