One thing divided workers have in common is divisions

AFSCME-MN's 2023-2025 tentative master agreement proposed a rare-sized, long overdue pay increase for Minnesota's public employees, and since a majority voted to accept, not strike, compensation changed upward for all Minnesota's state public employees across all units, north, south, east and west, all units and classes, on all steps.

That contract had a chorus of critics advising against accepting something good in lieu of something better. Doubts were sown attacking those who negotiated that raise, with enough doubts being sadly credible to undermine election integrity necessary for members to participate by trustingly casting votes.  Reportedly, at some point at some polling places, on polling day, provocateurs targeted the rabble with unsolicited personal points of view shared close enough and intimidatingly enough that it apparently aimed to influence or suppress member's right to vote their private conscience.

Economic division is one explaination why, as one travels north, out to the farms and forests, away from urban Metros where jobs, if not luxe cosmopolitan living, comes easy, outstate with the rocks and cows where factory closings and cyclic boom-busts make gaming casinos the only stable and dependable full time employment, places where desperate precariousness reigns. 

State worker raises might never come again, so why complain about dental quality of a gift horse? AFSCME raises need to appear proportionate enough in recognizing career-long, sustained effort at competent public service performance. In underplaying this division, feelings about dedication to service darn near turned the biggest state worker raise ever into negotiator incompetence and union graft poison. 

There are today more, not less, deadly mortal risks doing jobs directly facing the public. Public employment - sounds risky, would you risk your life to save someone? Nurses, doctors, first responders, peace officers - not just MnDOT who work plowing highways, but all who track inventory, do maintenance work for public thoroughfares, care for others or enforce laws that can end up sleepless, burned-out if denied leave in a spiral of understaffing, suffer repetitive nightmares about undoable things they did, with some unable to forget sights that cannot be unseen. 

Is there any division public workers might experience that hasn't tracked with or resulted in an employee payroll reduction? When non-negotiated COVID pandemic policy health edicts shut down state workplaces, workers that got sent home scattered, lost homes and many experienced a mandatory policy-making decision render their puzzle of survival insoluable. Those who stayed were duly thanked by a double-whammy COVID payroll reduction whipsawing, cutting both "going and coming back", because there was not any choice or negotiation in the matter. First a hit on those sent home, then further winnowing-out follows for those who remotely survived COVID's rock-and- a-hard-place policy pinch. No mystery here - workers who 'enjoy' remote work do get to raise their families, but in calls to come back, typically 25% of remote workers never return, so do the uncannily convenient toward zero payroll math.

Division between remote workers and non-remote workers results when a big change in the state's under-negotiated telework policy requires remote workers to work in-person at employer premises for at least 50% of scheduled workdays beginning June 1, 2025, with an exemption for employees who live more than 75 miles away from their primary work location.  This decision was not made with members’ voices at a negotiation table as a mutually agreed to and acceptable, respectful change 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."

https://lowwagelifestyle.blogspot.com/2024/12/chatgpt-can-make-mistakes-...