What We Can Learn From Minnesota Unions' Big Contract Wins

March 11, 2024

Fifteen thousand workers in Minnesota voted to authorize strikes recently, the culmination of over a decade of cross-sector organizing—with powerful results.

By Bryce Covert


Striking nursing home workers from 12 facilities across the Twin Cities join with commercial real estate workers, also on strike, at a picket line near Minneapolis in a united call for better pay and benefits for essential workers. (SEIU)

Michael Bartos has cleaned buildings owned by the state of Minnesota for almost nine years, working for contractor Marsden. A member of SEIU Local 26, he makes $18.62 an hour, nearly $8 higher than minimum wage in Minnesota. Yet when he buys a loaf of bread at the grocery store, it typically costs a quarter of his hourly wage. “That kind of thing hurts,” he said. He struggles to afford basics like paper towels or the gas he needs to get to work. He’d like to eat organic but can’t afford it. In past contract fights, he noted, he and his coworkers secured paid vacation time, but he makes so little that he can’t go anywhere or do much when he uses the time off. “It’s stuff like that that other people have that we don’t,” he said.

So last Monday he and 4,000 of his coworkers went on strike to demand higher pay, starting a three-day unfair labor practice strike with their union, affecting 100 buildings across the Twin Cities area. Bartos is also fighting alongside his coworkers to demand that they receive a pension, even though he thinks that, at age 55, he’s not likely to benefit himself. Their work “is very tough on people’s joints, backs,” he said. “We have a lot of people who have sacrificed their whole lives doing this job and there’s nothing waiting for them when they’re done.”

The strike, and their fight for a contract, is “a fight to move towards a more just and equitable life that we think we deserve,” he said.

Bartos and his coworkers aren’t fighting alone. Fifteen thousand workers in Minnesota voted to authorize strikes ahead of what they called the Week of Action last week. One thousand nursing home workers represented by SEIU Healthcare MN & IA and UFCW 663 at 12 homes in the Twin Cities started an unfair labor practice strike on Tuesday morning, the largest nursing home strike in state history. Minneapolis park maintenance workers held an informational picket on Wednesday.

FULL story: https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/minnesota-labor-strikes/