Minneapolis park workers strike enters 4th week after divided board declines to get involved

Striking Minneapolis parks workers begin a march at Boom Island Park headed to the park headquarters on July 24, 2024. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer.

The strike by Minneapolis parks workers entered its fourth week on Thursday after a divided Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board decided not to take up a proposal aimed at quickly reaching a deal with the union representing more than 300 workers.

The board adjourned on Wednesday evening, having only approved the agenda, after striking park workers shut down the meeting with three hours of shouting and chanting from a picket line circling the boardroom.

Minneapolis park keepers and arborists, who have been on strike for three weeks, filled the boardroom hopeful that the park board would pass a resolution directing the parks’ staff to offer leaders of LIUNA Local 363 a deal they said they would accept.

The resolution , brought by Commissioners Becky Alper and Tom Olsen, would direct park staff to make the union an offer based on everything they had already tentatively agreed to with the union including the park board’s last proposal on wage increases.

Park commissioners, who are elected by the public to oversee the city’s massive park system, usually don’t get involved in labor negotiations beyond rubber-stamping whatever deal Parks Superintendent Al Bangoura and his staff reaches. But the unprecedented strike, the first in the park board’s 141 year history, has roiled the nationally acclaimed park system and embittered its staff, who have missed 21 days of pay.

“After seven months of negotiations and three weeks of a strike, it’s time for us, the leaders of the Minneapolis parks system who the voters entrusted, to lean in and resolve this dispute,” Alper said. “It’s high time for this strike to end.”

Alper and Olsen’s resolution failed by a 3-5 vote to even be put on the agenda for the day, prompting shouts of “shame” and “do your jobs” from workers in the audience.

Commissioner Becka Thompson, voting against adding the resolution to the agenda, told workers from the dais that it didn’t have a chance of passing — and she wasn’t familiar with the details of the contract.

“I don’t know this contract well enough to make a statement on it,” Thompson said, which drew outrage from workers, who said the strike has upended their finances and could lead them to lose homes, cars or health insurance.

Thompson was joined in voting down the resolution by Park Board President Meg Forney, Vice President Cathy Abene and Commissioners Steffanie Musich and Elizabeth Shaffer. Commissioner Billy Menz voted in favor and Commissioner Charles Rucker was absent.

The two sides have been dug in despite prominent democrats voicing their support for the striking workers including Attorney General Keith Ellison and state Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy. The Minneapolis City Council also passed a resolution in support of the workers, while Mayor Jacob Frey offered to help mediate a resolution, which the park board declined.

Despite the strike, the park system has continued operations across its 185 properties largely without disruption although four bands cancelled concerts in solidarity with striking workers. Picketing workers also blocked delivery trucks at two parks restaurants, leading park leaders to file an unfair labor practices charge against the union.

Many union workers have crossed the picket line and continued showing up for shifts. Park officials say 59% of LIUNA Local 363 members are working while the union says it’s closer to 50%.

“It’s tough,” said AJ Lange, LIUNA Local 363 business agent. “That’s what happens when you’re working paycheck to paycheck.”

Pay raises already settled

A deal to end the strike seemed within grasp just days ago after the workers’ union accepted the park system’s last proposal on pay raises, clearing the table of budget concerns that had hung over negotiations.

Under the board’s latest offer, workers would receive raises of roughly 10.25% over three years plus “market adjustments” for many workers of $1.75 more per hour split over the final two years of the contract. The union wanted to receive more of the 10.25% raise in the first year, but settled for the park system’s offer of 2.75% in the first year, 4.5% in the second and 3% in the third.

Starting wages for parkkeepers and arborists currently are about $20 an hour and rise to about $31 an hour with seniority.

Park leaders said the offer would cost $5.1 million, paid for through an increase in the tax levy that would raise property taxes by about 1.75%.

Union leaders, noting the superintendent received a 10% raise this year, says the park system can afford the raises and suggested park leaders could tap into their $25 million in reserves.

New contract language proposal scuttle resolution

There are only a handful of new contract language proposals left to be resolved. Union leaders accepted a park proposal to extend the probationary period for new hires from six months to 12, but the rest they say are “poison pills.”

“[They’re] just keeping everyone on strike for insane language that no one was going to agree to,” said Kevin Pranis, marketing manager for LIUNA Minnesota & North Dakota. “They’re not trying to settle. They’re trying to win.”

Park officials proposed basing “step increases,” which come with pay raises, on performance reviews rather than automatic with seniority. The proposal would give managers the discretion to only award pay increases to workers they deem satisfactory.

Union leaders reject the idea, arguing it introduces bias and favoritism into performance reviews and say managers have more than enough tools to address unsatisfactory performance.

Lange, the union business agent, said park officials only proposed making step increases discretionary and extending the probationary period for new hires after workers had voted to strike.

“It was clearly a response to us voting to authorize a strike and trying to undermine any possibility that we would come to an agreement,” Lange said.

Park officials say they’re simply trying to make labor contracts consistent across the city of Minneapolis’ other labor agreements. Union leaders say they’re just cherry picking provisions they like from other contracts.

Park officials also want to contractually limit the number of union stewards who can use their work time to help colleagues understand their rights, navigate grievances and respond to disciplinary actions. The union says it currently has five stewards, which would be reduced to two under the park proposal.

And park officials want to limit “detailing” opportunities, in which workers receive premium pay if they’re largely performing tasks above their pay grade, to only those times when there is a scheduled absence. Park officials say the proposal would reduce last-minute schedule changes and provide more predictability. Union leaders say it would simply rob workers of the higher pay they’re entitled when taking on more work or filling a higher-paid vacant role.

The two sides agreed on Thursday to return to negotiations in the afternoon.