Service workers at the University of Minnesota are preparing to go on strike following the rejection of the school’s latest labor contract.
Members of Teamsters Local 320, which represents janitorial, maintenance and food service workers, were expected to start halting work Monday night as part of the systemwide strike.
“If we have to strike, we will,” said Grady Johnson, a union steward and gardener at the Twin Cities campus. “We want a fair contract, and we’re very close. I still think, I hope, this can be resolved, and we can go back to our day-to-day being at the university.”
The workers’ strike was to begin at 10 p.m. Monday on the Crookston and Morris campuses and expand to Duluth and satellite campuses early Tuesday morning. Workers at the Twin Cities campus were scheduled to join the strike Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The union’s current contract expired June 30, and negotiations have been ongoing since late March. Union members filed an intent to strike Aug. 7, with initial plans for the strike to begin Aug. 20, just as students were starting to return. The university put forth a new contract — its last, best and final offer — on Aug. 19, and the strike was put on hold so workers could consider the contract.
Votes were held across campuses leading up to last Friday’s deadline, when the contract offer expired. With an 82% majority, union members voted to reject the offer, citing frustrations over annual wage increases and changes to the contract’s expiration date.
“The university likes to talk about all the uncertainties that they’re facing, but we are facing significant uncertainties as workers as well,” said Kayli Staubus, who works as a cook at UMD and served on the union’s negotiation committee. “If there are cuts and belt-tightening that needs to be done, there are other places that can happen, besides our bargaining unit, which is some of the absolute lowest-paid workers on campus.”
In response to Friday’s vote, the university stated that current financial pressures have played a role in union negotiations this year, but it remains committed to prioritizing faculty and staff members.
“The University must balance the needs and desires of Teamsters Local 320 members with the University’s obligation to its many stakeholders to be good financial stewards, particularly given the financial challenges we are facing,” Gregg Goldman, executive vice president for finance and operations at the university, said in a statement released Friday.
As part of their membership, the Teamsters union includes cooks and other food service workers, as well as groundskeepers, janitors, parking attendants, maintenance workers, mechanics and more.
“We are all over campus. Basically, every kind of service position that there is, is performed by Teamster staff,” said Staubus. “So there’s going to be a huge gap in the student experience until the university makes this right. Obviously, we don’t want that.
“We’re out here for a living wage job that people can afford to stick with for the duration, and retire from someday,” she said. “That’s what we’re here to win.”
While the university has stated that it hopes to avoid a strike, plans are being developed to ensure that “vital services” on campus continue if a resolution isn’t reached.
“There’s a lot of frustration at the administration, and a lot of determination that we deserve better, and we’re going to get it,” said Johnson. “I’m personally very proud of my job. I really like my work, and I’m proud to work for the university. And to that measure, it does feel like a bit of a betrayal to get an offer that, I think, really doesn’t give us a fair shake for what we do.”
The university’s last offer included a 3% pay raise and two lump sum payments of $500, to be paid out in fall 2025 and July 2026. Union members would also see a minimum 2% pay increase the following year.
Shift differentials, or added pay for employees working non-standard hours, were also increased as part of the Aug.19 contract. Additionally, the university’s offer included an extension from six to 10 weeks for how long an employee can be on leave before their job is optioned for reassignment.
Concerns over wage increases and the change to the contract end date have become the biggest “sticking points” in negotiations, Staubus and Johnson both said. In the past, the Teamster contract ended in the summer, giving members time to organize outside of the school year. However, in this negotiation cycle, the university has pushed for a December expiration date, with the last offer optioning for a year-and-a-half-long contract, concluding Dec. 31, 2026.
“That’s something we’re not willing to accept, and membership has been very clear,” said Johnson. “We feel this is a maneuver to ensure that we have less leverage bargaining with the university, and given the way they’ve been bargaining with us, we’re not willing to concede on that. So it’s just a non-starter.”
At the start of negotiations, union members asked for a 9% pay increase, after conducting an internal audit that showed several of their most populated job classifications had not kept up with the rate of inflation. Other requests, like increases for weekend shift differentials and free campus parking for workers, were pushed to the wayside during negotiations, said Staubus, to get to this point.
“The tentative agreements that we have come to, there was a lot of compromise involved in those on both parts,” Staubus added. “We have dropped a lot of things that are important to either subsections or the entirety of our membership. … We hoped that the university would recognize all the movements that we’ve made and respond in kind, but it seems that they are digging in. So if they’re here to play hardball, so are we.”
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