For St. Paul city workers, bargaining shifted into high gear after Her took office
Written by Michael Moore, UA editor, Union Advocate
For St. Paul city workers, bargaining shifted into high gear after Her took office
Clerical and technical workers at the City of St. Paul ratified new three-year contracts earlier this month after just three bargaining sessions, locking in wage increases that will ensure most union members earn $20 per hour by 2028.
Negotiations between the city and two AFSCME locals, which bargain in tandem on behalf of a combined 1,000 workers, progressed much faster than they did three years ago, when dragged on for six months, sparked informational picketing and required 60 hours with a state mediator.
Two key factors, union leaders said, contributed to the quicker resolution. Workers were fired up from the start to support their bargaining team, and St. Paul voters elected a new mayor, Koahly Her, who sought to get her relationship with city workers off on the right foot.
“Some things we can give the city credit for, and some things we can credit ourselves with doing well,” AFSCME Local 1842 President Isaac Mielke said.
In the end, the new contracts will deliver a $1 across-the-board wage increase April 1 and increases of 3% and 3.5% on Jan. 1 of the next two years. Workers also gained a floating holiday, bereavement leave and a deferred-compensation match.
What’s more, those gains came with no concessions, Local 2508 Treasurer Chelsea Beary said.
“What did we give up? Nothing,” she said. “We took back some of our initial proposals, but the city didn’t add anything. There weren’t any real carveouts or concessions, and we’re really proud of that.”
The relationship between AFSCME – the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – and city leadership has warmed significantly since last fall, when administrators surprised city workers and their unions with a list of proposed changes to its civil-service rules that they planned to implement by year’s end.
The proposal, which administrators told union leaders they had been working on for about three years, sparked outrage – and action – among AFSCME members, who had already been organizing in opposition to then-Mayor Melvin Carter’s proposed staffing cuts at rec centers and a library.
Locals 1842 and 2508 began gathering support from city unions for a letter to council members opposing the civil-service changes, which would have doubled the probationary period, shortened the timeline for unions to file grievances and lifted guidelines for management in responding to worker complaints, among other changes.
“I think every city local was extremely concerned, and we all hit the ground running, talking to city council members to say this is not how you make these changes,” said Beary, an executive assistant in the Parks Department. “This is something we’re going to negotiate.”
Meanwhile, about 50 AFSCME members showed up to the city’s Truth in Taxation hearing Nov. 25 to oppose the staffing cuts.
“We wanted to do something proactive for these negotiations,” Mielke, a library associate, said. “It turned out, we got a lot of support from community members at that hearing, even people there to talk about other issues. And we won that budget fight.”
Unions won the fight over civil-service rules, too, and they took that momentum into contract talks with the city.
Labor Relations representatives were dismissive, Mielke and Beary said, of AFSCME’s proposals in two bargaining sessions before Carter left office, but that changed in their first – and only – session after Her’s inauguration in January.
“There was an immediate kind of visual change because the city literally brought us donuts,” Beary said. “We met for nine hours, but it became clear as the day went on that the city (representatives) were there to wrap this up.”
After union members voted to ratify the contracts, several members of the bargaining unit who were not signed up as AFSCME members showed their enthusiasm by joining the union, Mielke said.
“Right after we reached the tentative agreement, [Parks and Recreation] had their staff day, and we signed up 11 new members that day alone,” he said. “It’s really exciting.”