Above photo: Megan Dayton, president of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, the union representing some 18,000 state workers, speaks at a news conference with state Democratic lawmakers on March 28, 2025. Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer.
And Other Labor News.
Trump signs order rescinding union rights of federal workers.
Citing his national security authority, President Trump signed an executive order Thursday rescinding the collective bargaining rights of a massive swath of the federal workforce in a historic attack on public unions.
The order strips workers from the right to union representation across the federal enterprise, including at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Land Management.
While the order also includes the Department of Homeland Security, law enforcement officers including U.S. Border Patrol are exempted, as are firefighters, in a transparent gift to his political coalition.
Trump’s order cites the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which grants the president the power to terminate the union rights of workers in agencies with intelligence, counterintelligence or national security work as a primary function.
“Certain federal unions have declared war on President Trump’s agenda,” the White House said in announcing the order. “President Trump supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him; he will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.”
Following the order, the affected agencies filed a lawsuit against federal employee unions in Texas federal court seeking to terminate their union contracts.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union representing more than 800,000 workers, promised immediate legal action to challenge what it called a “blatant attempt at political punishment.” The union estimates it affects more than 1 million employees — about a third of whom are veterans.
“This administration’s bullying tactics represent a clear threat not just to federal employees and their unions, but to every American who values democracy and the freedoms of speech and association. Trump’s threat to unions and working people across America is clear: fall in line or else,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
AFGE and other public unions have filed numerous lawsuits against Trump’s executive orders, including the indiscriminate purge of federal probationary workers, which was reversed by a federal judge. The union also sued the Trump administration for terminating the government’s union contract covering tens of thousands of security agents and other employees at the Transportation Security Administration.
The White House said the unions representing Veterans Affairs workers have filed 70 national and local grievances over Trump’s policies since the inauguration, which will be terminated under the executive order. Federal workers have also relied on their union protections to speak out publicly against what they believe are harmful policies to the workforce.
The move to strip workers of their union protections comes as the Trump administration pursues massive cuts to the federal workforce including dismantling the Department of Education, cutting the Department of Veterans Affairs by upwards of 80,000 workers and laying off 10,000 employees in the Department of Health and Human Services.
The order seems to go further than Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a second Trump term, which proposed renegotiating public union contracts to further limit their power while Congress “consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place.”
Federal employee unions already have far more limited powers than private sector unions, and are barred from negotiating over wages, benefits and hiring decisions. Unionized federal employees are also prohibited from striking.
Unionized state employees vow to fight return to office order
The unions representing nearly 40,000 Minnesota state employees vowed to fight Gov. Tim Walz’s order for most workers to return to the office 50% of the time beginning on June 1.
“Our members are so fired up,” said Megan Dayton, president of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees. “A lot of them are saying this is the thing to strike over.”
Union leaders say many employees have organized their lives around working from home — some were hired as fully remote — and are now scrambling to find child care or buy a second car in order to make it into the office two or three times a week.
Dayton said there may not even be enough office space or parking spots available, as agencies have downsized to adjust for remote work at a considerable savings. The Department of Revenue, for example, reduced its leased office space by 35% since 2021, saving $2.45 million annually. The agency also reported greater efficiency since 2019 and higher retention and recruitment.
The order may be particularly galvanizing for state employees as they watch the Trump administration attack the federal workforce while the governor has frequently been traveling out-of-state for speaking engagements, setting up a potential presidential run.
Walz said mandatory hybrid work, with an exception for those living more than 75 miles from the office, promotes collaboration and follows the trend in both the private and public sectors of bringing workers back to the office. St. Paul city employees will be required to return to the office three days a week starting April 1, while major employers including General Mills, 3M and U.S. Bank have also required workers to return to the office.
“I think there’s a power in teams when they’re together,” Walz said at an unrelated news conference on Wednesday.
Walz also said calling workers back could help revive downtown St. Paul, which is succumbing to a vicious doom loop as visitors disappear, businesses shutter and the commercial tax base evaporates.
There is nowhere to buy groceries downtown after Lunds and Byerley’s closed its doors for good on Wednesday. Walz said he told the grocery chain’s leaders that a return to office could be on the horizon, but it wasn’t enough for them to reconsider. (That came as a shock to union leaders, who said they were blindsided by the announcement, finding out at the same time as the public.)
DFL lawmakers stood alongside union leaders at a news conference on Thursday blasting the governor’s order as an assault on workers; House legislative staff are required to work full-time in office during the Legislative session and two days a week out of session. Legislative staff are also prohibited from unionizing.
Walz said around 60% of state employees already work in-person and did so through the entire COVID-19 pandemic. He said he was confident there would be enough space to accommodate a return to the office.
Walz also rejected the suggestion that the return-to-work order could be a way to thin the state workforce in the face of a souring budget outlook. He said he was more concerned about the high attrition of employees in their first six months, which he thinks could be improved with hybrid work fostering more connection and mentorship opportunities.
A strike couldn’t happen until late in the summer — after the state’s contracts with MAPE and AFSCME expire on June 30 and the unions have participated in mediation — and such an extreme action may not win broad public sympathy given many other office workers transitioned to hybrid schedules years ago, while frontline workers — like bus drivers, nurses and servers — never worked from home.
The unions may not have much recourse. Though they said they are considering possible litigation, their contracts only entitle workers to have meetings to discuss changes to remote work and the ability to appeal those decisions. Changes to remote work aren’t subject to a formal grievance process, however.
U of M resident physicians file for union
A supermajority of the nearly 1,000 resident physicians and fellows at the University of Minnesota filed to unionize in one of the largest union drives in the state in recent years, SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents union announced on Monday.
The move comes on the heels of more than 200 resident physicians at Hennepin Healthcare becoming the first to file to unionize in Minnesota earlier this month as part of a surge in organizing among young doctors in their final years of training.
Resident physicians complain of unsustainable working conditions, often putting in grueling 80-hour weeks and taking home what amounts to about the city of Minneapolis’ minimum hourly wage of $15.97.
Under state law, the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services will certify the union without an election if the agency is able to verify a majority of the bargaining unit has signed in support of the union.
Child labor violations on the rise in Minnesota
Child labor violations have increased significantly in Minnesota — and across the country — in recent years as a tight labor market has coincided with a surge in unaccompanied migrant children.
The number of underage workers found to be employed in violation of child labor laws increased nearly fivefold in the United States and more than twofold in Minnesota from 2015 to 2023, according to a new report from the left-leaning think tank North Star Policy Action.
One-third of the minors counted in 2022 came from just one case where investigators found children employed by Packers Sanitation Services cleaning hazardous equipment during overnight shifts at the JBS plant in Worthington, the Turkey Valley Farms plant in Marshall and the Buckhead Meat plant in St. Cloud.
It’s difficult to determine if the uptick is caused simply by more enforcement, but the researchers say there’s reason to believe illegal child labor has increased with the rise of migrant children arriving from Latin America. One study cited in the report found a state’s child labor violations increase 10% for every 1% increase in unaccompanied minors.
North Star Policy Action recommends that Minnesota lawmakers bolster labor protections for children by aligning state and federal law, which they say is particularly important now given the potential for the Trump administration to roll back child labor laws. Project 2025 calls for the Department of Labor to permit teenagers to work in hazardous jobs with parental consent.
80 nursing home workers struck for two days
Around 80 nursing assistants, cooks, housekeepers and other workers at Providence Place nursing home in Minneapolis struck on Tuesday and Wednesday as they seek higher wages and staffing levels.
The two sides remain “very far apart” on raises and don’t have more negotiations planned yet, said Rasha Ahmad Sharif, executive vice president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa, the union representing the workers. The union is seeking 17.5% raises over three years, while the company has offered 5% over two years, Sharif said.
SEIU had also called strikes at three other facilities but reached tentative agreements last week to avert a work stoppage. Workers at The Villas at St. Louis Park will receive a 4.5% increase and will negotiate raises in the following two years of the contract.
Wages for all nursing home workers in Minnesota are set to increase to $22 per hour on average across job duties in 2026 and $23.49 per hour in 2027, contingent upon funding from the state, under rules passed by the state’s Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board. The board also voted to guarantee workers 11 paid holidays, which nursing home industry groups are currently suing to block.