Minneapolis Parks Authority strikes against concessions demanded by the Democratic Party
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) workers began a week-long strike on July 4 after seven months of negotiations with the city government. The 240 members of Laborer’s International Union of North America (LIUNA) Local 363 are fighting concessions on safety, health care and wages. The strike is the first in the city’s parks department’s history.
The strike pits workers against the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, as the state’s Democratic Party is called, which controls all nine MPRB commissioners, the MPRB superintendent and the mayor, who are trying to shift the city’s economic crisis onto the backs of the working class.
The park administration is being tough on workers. When negotiations broke down after management presented its “last, best and final offer,” it told Local 363 that workers would not be able to return to their jobs at the end of their week-long strike without a collective bargaining agreement in place. This effectively locks workers out unless they accept a deal packed with concessions.
The park authority is offering a meager wage increase of 10.25 percent over three years – 2.75, 4.5 and 3 percent for each year of the contract. Workers have backed up their demands for better pay by pointing out that they and workers in surrounding communities earn much less.
“The parks department gave us data (on wages) without citing any sources,” Local 363 union representative Mitch Clendenen told the WSWS. “We did a market analysis of wages for comparable jobs in the surrounding metropolitan area and chose the top 20 areas. At the high end, Minneapolis parks department members were underpaid by $15 an hour. If you average those wages, we were underpaid by $8 an hour.”
Meanwhile, the city gave MPRB Superintendent Alfred Bangoura a 10 percent raise this year alone. He now makes $210,000 per year.
The systematic underpayment of wages is all the more outrageous given that the Trust for Public Land has repeatedly ranked Minneapolis’ parks first among the 100 most populous cities in the country. It currently ranks second on its website.
The workers are also outraged about the health care package. “City workers used to have the best health insurance,” Clendenen said. “But it’s steadily going downhill. Right now, most of our members are avoiding going to the doctor. When I go to the doctor, I get a bill for $300 to $400.”
He continued:
The park service has been warning members about something they call “security as a weapon.” If you bring something up, they don’t like it. “Security as a weapon” is actually in the document.
We have seen union members electrocuted under power lines; members dealing with hypodermic needles while cleaning up homeless camps; we deal with feces on a daily basis.
On the other hand, the park administration countered our safety precautions by saying that an employee who does not speak up about a safety issue will be disciplined. In other words, it’s your fault you got hurt, so now we’re disciplining you for not speaking up. We were shocked when they addressed this issue. Throughout the negotiations, we were pushed and dismissed. It’s sad.
Workers also oppose the board’s attempts to undermine seniority in job allocation. One worker told the WSWS: “Every winter we have something called winter preference. All the parks come together and union members can choose which rinks they want to go to, which buildings they want to work in, and so on. The park board leadership wants to eliminate seniority citywide and restrict preferential treatment to their own districts. The city is divided into five districts. There are three southern districts, a northeast/southeast district, and north Minneapolis is one district.”
The city is trying to pass the drop in property tax revenue onto workers. Since the pandemic began, property values in Minneapolis, like other cities, have plummeted and office complexes are empty or only partially occupied.
Nearly 80 percent of the MPRB’s general fund relies on property taxes. “This is a real reality check,” MPRB Board Chair Meg Forney said in February as the crisis unfolded. “So watch out folks,” meaning big cuts were coming.
There is enormous potential for a broader struggle that unites park workers with the entire working class. Four hundred city public works employees voted by a 99 percent majority to strike.
Teachers from the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers have repeatedly fought the city government over their living standards and conditions in public schools. Nurses, doctors and other medical personnel have participated in multiple strikes.
There are thousands of workers represented by unions contracted with the city of Minneapolis – the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Building Trades, Operating Engineers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Teamsters, Firefighters, the International Association of Machinists and others.
Currently, 176 wastewater treatment plant workers from the International Union of Operating Engineers at nine plants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area have announced an intention to strike on June 17 after overwhelmingly rejecting the Metropolitan Council’s wage offer.
The Minnesota Historical Society has fired seven employees who were involved in organizing their union. The employees were given two days’ notice and management required them to waive their right to recall if new positions arise in the future.
But workers face a struggle not only against the Democratic Party-led city government, but also against their supporters in the union bureaucracy. The union bureaucrats are trying to separate all these struggles and limit them as much as possible.
This includes LiUNA declaring a temporary strike rather than an indefinite one, which has resulted in the initiative now being passed to the park administration. Instead of appealing for support from the working class, Local 363 has simply stated that they will file an unfair labor practice complaint over the lockout.
But asking for support from the same government that is opposing the workers will get us nowhere. Instead, the workers must mobilize to expand their struggle. An action committee must be formed that directly calls workers across the city and the country to a common struggle.
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