Striking park workers file unfair labor charge over threats of lock out; Park Board quickly reverses

Striking Minneapolis park workers will likely return to work as planned Thursday, after the Park Board reversed its lockout stance and agreed to bring workers back even if a contract is not reached by then.

Board officials had said striking workers must remain on strike and would not be allowed back to work, but rescinded that threat Monday afternoon, hours after the workers union filed an unfair labor practices charge.

The workers, who comb hypodermic needles out of Minneapolis parks, clean bathrooms, empty trash bins, clear paths of downed tree limbs and monitor pool chemistry per health codes, have been on a seven-day strike since July 4 after months of contract negotiations stalled. They’ve been picketing at some of the city’s most popular locations, including Minnehaha Falls Park and Lake Harriet Band Shell, where concerts including one scheduled for Monday evening have been canceled.

Park Board managers and workers have not gone back to the table since contract negotiations broke down around midnight on July 1. The Laborers International Union of North America Local 363 filed an unfair labor practices charge against the Park Board after managers threatened in a July 2 email an indefinite lockout of striking workers.

“This behavior raises serious questions about the Park Board’s integrity and true intentions in contract negotiations,” Local 363 business manager AJ Lange, an arborist, had said.

In its “last, best and final” offer on July 1, the Park Board proposed a 10.25% wage increase for most full-time laborer positions, which would cost $4.6 million, according to a Park Board statement. In contrast, the union’s last proposal would have cost approximately $6.7 million over three years.

“Park leadership is confident that the plans the MPRB has in place, including adjusting both work priorities and staffing locations, will help the MPRB continue to deliver core services and minimize impacts to the public” during the strike, according to the statement. “The MPRB has been negotiating in good faith for more than seven months.”

On the picket line Friday, much of the talk concerned the Park Board’s request for contract concessions. These include extending the new hire probation period — the length of time someone could be fired for any reason without notice — from six months to one year, and making annual wage step increases discretionary, allowing management to withhold automatic raises for individuals at will.

“No other bargaining unit that we represent in this labor-friendly state puts that in contracts,“ said Keith Glenn of Local 363, who has been bargaining on behalf of workers. “That means we can say you do a great job but I don’t like you, you don’t get a raise.”

Striking workers also said they were disturbed by a July 2 email from the Park Board’s human resources department stating, “If a Local 363 employee chooses to not report to work, they must remain out on strike for the duration of the strike,” and, “A strike is considered to have ended when an agreement is ratified by Local 363 membership.”

The email indicates that at the conclusion of the seven-day strike for which the union has given notice, the Park Board intended to lock out the workers who participated in the strike until the union accepts the contract offered.

“It’s scary,” said Anthony Smith, a park worker of 10 years and a union steward. “We decided to do a one-week strike after talking to members because the vast majority of members agreed that the longer it goes on, the more it’s going to impact their families. And then on top of all of this uncertainty, it’s compounded with fear tactics and threats. We’re talking about people losing their vehicles, their homes, their labor, no income coming in for who knows how long.”

Local 363 is accusing Superintendent Al Bangoura and the Park Board of violating federal labor protections for workers on strike. It is the second unfair labor charge the union has filed during the course of ongoing contract negotiations. In December, Local 363 accused management of infringing on workers’ freedom of speech by imposing work rules prohibiting them from being critical of the Park Board.

The Park Board reversed course on Monday afternoon, acknowledging that it cannot legally lock out striking workers without locking out all Local 363 members. The board issued a statement assuring the agency will not prevent striking workers from returning to work at the conclusion of their strike on Thursday because it “is not in MPRB’s value set.”

The Park Board is a semi-autonomous governing body of the city of Minneapolis. Park arborists also take care of all public trees. City Council President Elliott Payne and Members Jason Chavez and Aurin Chowdhury addressed workers’ picket line on Friday.

“Minnehaha Falls Park, that we’re in right now, is a gem in our community and one of the few places in the city of Minneapolis where you can have a waterfall in your backyard, which is pretty incredible,” said Chowdhury, whose ward includes Minnehaha Park. “Minneapolis feels the work that you do every single day to make these parks the best in the nation. If we’re going to claim that and say that, we better treat our workers the best we can.”

On Monday night, the board of park commissioners convened for a special meeting to discuss ongoing contract negotiations.

Park Board Finance Director Juli Wiseman reminded commissioners about the agency’s reliance on property taxes, and the decline in tax collections due to the plummeting value of the city’s commercial real estate and tax court settlements. The Park Board’s Finance Committee is scheduled to discuss how much next year’s property tax levy should be at this Wednesday’s regularly scheduled meeting, followed by full board approval on July 24. Mayor Jacob Frey, City Council members and elected members of the Board of Estimate and Taxation must then approve the Park Board’s levy request.

“So you will be making these decisions pretty quickly,” Wiseman said. “Now, my history here at the Park Board, 30-plus years of history, is that it is very, very difficult, and we have a very uphill battle to get a property tax levy that is at the magnitude that we are estimating for our last best and final or the union’s proposal.”

Park Commissioner Becky Alper, who had called for Monday’s meeting along with Commissioners Billy Menz and Tom Olsen, suggested the Park Board look for cuts in order to pay workers more, such as leaving the July 4 fireworks show for another government body to finance and pausing capital improvement projects.

Menz urged the Park Board to continue to negotiate on contract language beyond wages, and questioned the purpose of provisions to reduce the number of union stewards and make automatic wage increases the discretion of managers.

“I sense a culture in the organization where there are punitive actions that are concerned, and I think that this type of language continues and maybe even exasperates that culture,” he said.

Striking workers say they want the Park Board to return to the bargaining table. Bangoura asked union leadership to call a vote on the Park Board’s last contract offer.

“We had put forward our best, last and final proposal to the union and we haven’t had a response back from that,” he said.

Park workers sitting in the audience protested loudly, with several shouting the last proposal was the reason they’re on strike.