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Board officials had said striking workers must remain on strike and would not be allowed back to work, but rescinded that threat Monday afternoon, hours after the workers union filed an unfair labor practices charge.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