13,000 workers across industries authorize strikes in Twin Cities — and other labor news

Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news from Minnesota and beyond. This week: Unions prepare for simultaneous strikes; trust accounts for child influencers; union boss campaigns for school board; National Labor Relations Board orders Minneapolis Home Depot to reinstate worker; MIA workers protest curator firing; Amazon argues NLRB is unconstitutional; and tens of thousands of public employees in Florida lose union representation. 

Thousands ready to strike

More than 13,000 janitors, security guards, nursing home workers, public works employees and teachers across the Twin Cities metro area have authorized strikes in a coordinated effort among several unions that’s years in the making.

The unions representing the workers say they’ve given employers a deadline of early March to reach deals on new contracts or else they’re prepared to walk off the job. On Tuesday, some 600 workers at seven nursing homes announced a 24-hour unfair labor practices strike on March 5, and another 400 workers at five more nursing homes followed suit on Thursday.

By acting together, the unions hope the additional public pressure will propel them to win larger gains than they could in scattershot campaigns.

“When unions are isolated from their communities, it is very hard for them to make the kind of advances that working people deserve,” said SEIU Local 26 President Greg Nammacher in an interview. “If we’re going to have big demands, we do need to be in alignment with our community.”

And the workers have big demands: Nursing home workers want a $25 an hour minimum wage — nearly double what some workers currently earn. Janitors and security guards want employer-funded retirement benefits for the first time. St. Paul teachers want $7,500 raises across the board this year and a 7.5% raise next year.

It’s a strategy that could become more common. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain — after winning historic wage increases for workers at the Big Three automakers — called for unions to align their contracts for a general strike on May 1, 2028.

The seeds of the campaign — called “What Could We Win Together?” — were planted 10 years ago when SEIU Local 26 leaders began lining up labor contracts to expire across the sectors they represent: commercial janitors, retail janitors, security guards, airport workers and other service workers.

They also pulled in nonprofit organizations Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL), a worker center for Latino workers; Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia (IX), a renters’ rights organization; and ISAIAH, a progressive coalition of faith groups, for their support.

Then about two years ago, SEIU Local 26 leaders reached out to unions with contracts expiring around the same time. The campaign was publicly announced last fall with 1,000 workers and activists coming together to commit to four shared goals: dignified work, good schools, stable housing and a livable planet.

Child influencers must be paid

Child social media influencers would be entitled to the proceeds of their content — set aside in trust accounts until they turn 18 years old — under a law proposed by Minnesota Democrats. The bill is inspired by California’s child actor law, called the “Coogan Law” after the star of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid.” Jackie Coogan earned millions as a child star only to reach adulthood and find out his parents had spent nearly all his earnings. Similar bills are pending in Maryland, Washington, Pennsylvania, Texas and Nebraska, according to MinnPost.

Teachers union president runs for school board

Greta Callahan, president of the teacher chapter of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, announced her bid for Minneapolis school board on Tuesday. Callahan, a kindergarten teacher, led the union on a strike for 14 school days in 2022, the first for the union since 1970.

If elected, Callahan could help teachers secure higher wages and working conditions on the other side of the bargaining table. But the school leadership position could also force her to make decisions unpopular with teachers as the district confronts declining enrollment and financial trouble, which could force the district to close schools and lay off educators.

The Minneapolis teachers’ union is in contentious negotiations over a new two-year contract, and has signaled a vote to authorize a strike could be imminent. The teachers are asking for a 8.5% raise in the first year of the contract and 7.5% raise in the second.

Callahan is running for District 6 in southwest Minneapolis, where she was raised. She did not return a call seeking comment.

Home Depot ordered to rehire worker

The National Labor Relations Board ruled on Wednesday that the Home Depot on New Brighton Boulevard in Minneapolis violated federal labor law in 2021 by forcing an employee to quit unless they removed “BLM” from their orange work apron. The board, which oversees private-sector unions, ordered the company to reinstate Antonio Morales, Jr. with back pay plus interest.

The National Labor Relations Act guarantees workers, whether they’re unionized or not, the right to act collectively for “mutual aid or protection,” and the board ruled 3 to 1 that Morales engaged in protected activity because other employees also wrote “BLM”  — for Black Lives Matter — on their aprons in the fall of 2020 to protest racism in the store.

“It is well-established that workers have the right to join together to improve their working conditions — including by protesting racial discrimination in the workplace,” NLRB Chairman Lauren McFerran said in a statement.

Morales and other workers repeatedly complained about one fellow employee, who they said discriminated against non-white customers and workers. In one instance, Morales said the co-worker told him to watch a Black customer, saying people of Somali descent were more likely to steal. That employee was ultimately terminated for not respecting customers and co-workers.

Company leaders expressed sympathy for Morales and their co-workers for what they experienced, and one manager urged Morales to continue working at Home Depot.

But a store manager and district manager said Morales had to remove BLM from their apron to return to work because if BLM were permitted, they would also have to allow employees to wear swastikas, according to the NLRB ruling. Morales resigned.

A spokesman for Home Depot said the company disagrees with the decision but did not say if they would appeal the ruling in federal court.

Mia workers protest curator’s termination

Workers at the Minneapolis Institute of Art picketed outside the museum on Thursday to protest the firing of curator Robert Cozzolino and what they describe as a toxic workplace. Cuzzolino and other workers told MPR News that Mia leaders, including President Katherine Crawford Luber, haves been unsupportive of diversity and equity efforts.

More than 500 artists, curators and professors have signed an open letter to Mia decrying Cozzolino’s firing, which is also being contested by OPEIU Local 12. Luber told MPR that Cozzolino was fired for cause and his termination has nothing to do with the museum’s “journey towards a more diverse, more equitable, more inclusive place.”

Amazon argues NLRB is unconstitutional

Amazon joined Trader Joe’s and SpaceX in arguing that the nearly 90-year-old National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional in a case over whether the tech giant unlawfully retaliated against New York City warehouse workers who voted to unionize in 2022.

The push to dissolve the agency is part of a larger conservative attack on the administrative state, which could make it even easier for employers to violate workers’ rights to organize.

The NLRB was created as part of the New Deal to safeguard workers’ rights to unionize and act collectively for their benefit. The federal agency has a prosecutorial arm, which investigates labor violations and brings complaints against employers and unions, as well as a quasi-judicial arm with administrative judges who decide cases.

In legal filings, Amazon denied allegations that it violated labor law and argued that the agency is unconstitutional and violates the separation of powers, according to the New York Times.

“Since they can’t defeat successful union organizing, they now want to just destroy the whole process,” Seth Goldstein, an attorney for the Amazon Labor Union and Trader Joe’s United, told the Associated Press.

Florida’s successful attack on public unions

Tens of thousands of public employees in Florida have lost union representation as a result of a state law passed last year, according to an investigation by WLRN. The law bans state and local governments from automatically deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks, while requiring unions to collect dues from at least 60% of the workers they represent to stay active. If unions don’t meet the threshold, they have one month to collect signatures from 30% of members to hold a new union election.

Numerous unions representing state and city employees, teachers and non-instructional workers at public colleges have all been decertified. The law exempted unions representing police officers, firefighters and correctional officers.