When the common thing is feeling divided and disunified

AFSCME-MN's 2023-2025 tentative master agreement proposed a rare-sized, long sought pay increase for public employees in over a hundred Locals, and since a majority voted to accept 8% over two years, not strike, compensation changed upward for 18,000 public employees across all units, north, south, east and west, in all units and classes, for all steps, including the least and very lowest possible step. Minimum wage.

Giving raises to everyone gets compared with sloppily spreading peanut butter, a view that defines wage raises of broad effect as careless wastage rather than proactive human resource retention insurance. A raise is supposedly one of the best common causes that connects every working person in their struggles to keep up with the rising cost of living.

Should collective bargaining for raises allow for inflation? What is the usual and customary way doable proposals get put in front of contract negotiators - before they negotiate, during or after? In collective bargaining, the correct answer is before. Any member can write proposals, or get help with doing one.

Inequity proposals resemble contract proposals but are not about adding new and different language. Inequities survey workforce mood to signal which positions are unacceptably 'hot' (underwaged such that nobody stays, to flag where turnover has left long unfilled positions) that have, past tense, fallen out of step with the labor market. It feels so fine and fair to get what someone else gets, public employee pay is not private information, who wouldn't want to be paid as much as the other guy.   Locals kick proposals around, so many are duplicative, so many have narrow effect that careful triage by committee is necessary to sift out viable proposals that will benefit more than one single section, department or class. 

Economic divisions are one explaination why, as one travels north or outstate to farms and forests, one sees differences about contracts. Urban Metro areas are where jobs, if not luxe and comfortable cosmopolitan living, aren't difficult to come by.  Outstate with the rocks and cows is where gruelling hands-on, in-person overtime seasonal shift-work, factory closings and cyclic boom-busts leaves gaming casinos are the only dependable full time employment. Where there are fewer degrees and diplomas per capita, that's where paycheck-to-paycheck precariousness reigns, that's where anger and outrage are found.

When the educated get paid more, they are paid more where ever they go, no surprise those chafed raw by inequity become frustrated, start rumbling and spewing about alleged negotiator incompetence and union graft. A very expensive anti-labor campaign direct-mailed to all members timed to negotiations cartooned disunity by implying unions are a monstrous evil, and collectively bargained public safety contracts are a trick perpetrated by overpaid, elite and unaccountable staff.

There is today more, not less, deadly mortal risk doing jobs directly facing the public. Public employment - sounds risky, but lately have you risked your life to save someone you do not know? Nurses, doctors, first responders, peace officers - not just MnDOT plowing highways, but all who track inventory, do maintenance work for public thoroughfares, care for others or enforce laws are more often ending up sleepless, burned-out, denied leave in spirals of understaffing, or suffer nightmares about doing undoable things. Every worker who faces the public, come now, everyone raise their hand those who've seen some awful sight that cannot be unseen. Government's jobs - not every state job is a comfy leather recliner in the air-conditioned corner office.

Is there public workers division that hasn't been coincident with some payroll reduction? When COVID pandemic fiats and policy shut down state workplaces, policy forced many to go home, now further winnowing-out forces back those who remotely survived COVID's rock-and-a-hard-place. No mystery here - workers able to 'enjoy' remote work do get a better shot at raising their families.  Is that advantage fair?  Do better families matter, or not? The latest salvo of under-negotiated telework policy requires, according to a contract that barely mentions this subject, remote workers put some miniimun time in-person on employer premises beginning June 1, 2025, with exemptions for employees who live more than 75 miles away from their primary work location.  These decisions were not made with members’ voices at a negotiation table to become mutually agreed and acceptable, respectful changes in contractual workplace terms and conditions.

AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Bart Andersen said:

"Let me be perfectly clear: as Executive Director of AFSCME Council 5, representing more than 18,000 state employees, we will not tolerate unilateral changes to our members’ work. The Administration’s decision to impose sweeping workplace policy changes without engaging our union and labor partners first is not just unacceptable—it’s an act of blatant disrespect. Our union members must have and deserve a seat at the table every step of the way. We are demanding full transparency and meaningful dialogue immediately. AFSCME Council 5, alongside our fellow labor union partners, will do whatever it takes to defend our members’ rights, safeguard their ability to work safely and effectively, and continue delivering high-quality public services for all Minnesotans."

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