Our Supporters Speak Up

Watch this page for our growing list of supporters.

See even more letters of support on the Community Strike Support Web site

Legislators call on Bruininks and Regents to Settle the Strike

September 7, 2007

Dear President Bruininks and Members of the Board of Regents:

It is sad that we have to write this letter. We are deeply disappointed that thousands of University employees have been forced onto the picket lines due to the unwillingness of the University Administration to provide adequate contact settlements for its clerical, technical and health care workers. For the first time in many years, the Minnesota Legislature provided the University with a generous 3.25 percent salary supplement. We expected those funds to be used to benefit all University employees. We can't understand how you can justify your miniscule offer of 2.25 percent on the salary schedule for your hard working, dedicated employees.

It is painful for us to watch our friends, many of whom we helped win election to the Board of Regents, turn their backs on the working men and women of the University of Minnesota. After approving a 17.5 percent two-year increase in the President's salary, how can you justify offering your lowest paid employees a mere 2.25 percent increase per year. Think about it - the President's first year raise of $38,000 is more than the average annual salary of your striking workers.

President Bruininks, you appeared before our Division earlier this year asking for adequate funding to attract and retain the best employees possible. Despite tremendous pressure from the Governor to reduce your total appropriation, we gave you and the University what we felt you needed to remain competitive. Now we ask you to do the same. Give your employees the increase that they need so that they will continue to be the productive, hard working employees we have come to know and respect at the University of Minnesota.

Sincerely,

Tom Rukavina, Chair, Higher Education and Work Force Development Policy and Finance Division

Mary Murphy, Chair, Education Finance and Economic Competitiveness Finance Division

Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Speaker of the MN House, urges Bruininks to deal fairly with U workers

September 7, 2007

Dear President Bruininks,

Thank you for making yourself available recently to discuss the University of Minnesota's contract negotiations with the AFSCME locals representing 3,500 clerical, technical and health care workers employed by the University of Minnesota campuses. I am writing today because I am greatly concerned by the current bargaining impasse and the breakdown of meaningful negotiations.

I respectfully request that you encourage the University's appointed negotiators to resume constructive, good faith negotiations with AFSCME's negotiating teams.

During the 2007 Legislative Session, the legislature appropriated funds to the University of Minnesota after lengthy committee discussions with the implicit intent of a reasonable salary supplement to improve the standard of living of workers facing inflationary pressures.

Frontline workers at the University of Minnesota derserve respect and a fair contract. Again, I encourage you to bring your negotiators back to the table with additional resources and to find a compromise that honors those workers that serve the University of Minnesota, its students, and the public.

If you would like to discuss this matter further, please feel free to contact me at my office.

Sincerely,

Margaret Anderson Kelliher
Speaker, Minnesota House of Representatives

Sociology Department Faculty to Bruininks

September 8, 2007

Dear President Bruininks:

We are writing to express our concern regarding the administration’s negotiations with the AFSCME clerical, health care, and technical workers on campus.  As faculty and staff in the Sociology Department, we are deeply committed to social justice in our teaching, research, and engagement with society. This commitment begins at home, right here on this campus. It is of the utmost importance to us and to our students that this strike be settled immediately so that the workers who serve us so well do not miss one more day's pay. 

We urge the administration to return to the bargaining table in good faith and settle this strike immediately. We do not understand why the University failed to conclude its negotiations with these workers in the first place.  Given the few remaining issues at the table, the clear notice of the intent to strike and the predictable negative impact of such a strike during the first week of classes, we believe that the administration had a responsibility to the University community to carry out its negotiations in good faith and in a competent and timely fashion.  The consequences of the negotiating team’s failure to do so affect us all in myriad practical and ethical ways.

Things are not running smoothly. Many critical functions that directly affect our obligations to students are being compromised. We are concerned at the tone of the communications from the Office of Human Resources that characterize the University’s operations as continuing “at the highest service level” during this strike. This contention is patently false. Losing clerical and technical workers during the first week of the semester clearly causes problems for students and faculty. Through the heroic efforts of our remaining staff and through faculty and graduate students' attempts to pick up the slack, the department continues to function.  However, this is not sustainable in the long run, it is unfair to the non-striking staff, and faculty and graduate student efforts to fill in are no substitute for the years of experience and skill our co-workers bring to our University community.

Further, mistaking correlation for causation, university spokespersons suggest that union workers who remain on the job do not support the strike and are content with their pay and work conditions. An alternative explanation is that these low-paid workers simply cannot afford to go on strike.  The possibility of losing weeks or months of pay is scary for all workers.  It is particularly frightening to employees who lack disposable income and struggle each month to make ends meet.  The University is incorrect to assume that non-striking workers do not support the union and fellow employees who are on the picket lines.

We are also concerned about the consequences of the strike for non-striking workers, including faculty and other staff.  Let us state clearly that we find it repugnant to have to cross picket lines to teach classes.  Many of our students do not want to cross picket lines to go to class.  The faculty’s freedom to hold classes off campus, in support of the strikers, must be respected.

If we are to become one of the top research universities in the nation, all of our efforts and energies must be directed toward achieving excellence in teaching, research, and service to the community.  Anything that distracts our attention from these goals will hinder our efforts to fulfill the University’s highest aspirations.  The administration should realize that a prolonged strike will only tarnish the University’s reputation in our highly progressive state. If the administration wishes its faculty, staff, and students to direct their full attention to their crucial teaching, service and research activities, then we urge you to act quickly to restore good will and a sense of normalcy on campus by returning to the bargaining table.

We in the Sociology Department at the University of Minnesota are committed in the strongest possible terms to social justice in our own community. We urge you to act immediately to settle with our highly valued colleagues.

Sincerely,

Ronald Aminzade
Yanjie Bian
Elizabeth Boyle
Jeffrey Broadbent
Penny Edgell
Robert Fox
Michael Goldman
Teresa Gowan
Douglas Hartmann
Kathleen Hull
Erin Kelly
David Knoke
Carolyn Liebler
Enid Logan
Ann Meier
Ann Miller
Ross Macmillan
Jeylan Mortimer
Joshua Page
Joel Samaha
Joachim Savelsberg
Rachel Schurman
Christoper Uggen
Robert Warren

Concerning the AFSCME Strike

Dear Ms. Carrier

I'm writing to express my displeasure at the University's response
to the AFSCME strike. During my 5 years at the University (4 years
of undergrad and 1 year of graduate school), I have received the
utmost quality of service from AFSCME workers. If it wasn't for
their hard work and support, it would be unlikely that I would
have received the level of success that I have already attained.

I'm especially disappointed in the tone that Human Resources has
taken towards the negotiations with AFSCME workers. Given the fact
that University is able to find "real dollars" for a football
stadium, "real dollars" for a multi-million dollar marketing
campaign, and the "real dollars" required to give administration
double digit raises, I am baffled that the University is unable to
find the money needed to give AFSCME workers a raise that keeps up
with the level of inflation. This is especially puzzling since the
University has received enough money from the State Legislature to
give all University workers a 3.5% raise.

If the University ever hopes to become one premier research
institution, it will be because of the people that work and attend
the University. Without giving AFSCME workers the respect and
wages they deserve, I do not believe that the University will be
able to reach its true potential.

Sincerely,

Mark Erpelding
Minneapolis, MN

College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Chairs' Letter to President Bruininks

August 30, 2007

Dear President Bruininks:

We, the undersigned Chairs of Departments in CLA, write to urge you to reach an agreement with the AFSCME clerical, technical and health workers that reflects the high value of these workers to our institution. This means taking seriously the needs and demands of our employees.

Our Departments' clerical and technical workers not only "make things go"; they actively contribute to the excellence of what we offer. They are vital participants in the artistic and intellectual life of our community, the first level of interface between students and the institution, and integral to our planning and decision-making processes. Many of us already feel that they are under-paid for the level of expertise and experience they offer, and that they have disproportionately borne the brunt of past austerity measures. If the University cannot recruit and retain these valuable personnel with fair compensation packages, it also risks compromising its strategic mission to become a public research institution of the highest calibre and reputation.

As faculty members and as department chairs, we strongly urge you to consider an equitable solution to this impasse that demonstrates that the University is prepared to recognize and compensate its clerical, technical and health workers at a level commensurate with their extraordinary and indispensable contribution to this great institution.

Very Sincerely,

Paula Rabinowitz, Professor and Chair of English and
Samuel Russell Chair in the Humanities

On behalf of the following co-signers:

Chris Uggen, Distinguished McKnight Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology

Steven F. Ostrow, Professor and Chair, Department of Art History

Ana Paula Ferreira, Professor and Chair, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Edward Schiappa, Professor and Chair, Communications Studies and Paul W. Frenzel Chair of Liberal Arts

Riv-ellen Pressl Professor and Chair, American Studies and Fessler-Lampert Chair in Public Humanities

Michal Kobialka, Professor and Chair, Theatre Arts and Dance and Scholar of the College

Ray M. Wakefield, Professor and Interim Director, ILES

Geoffrey Hellman, Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy

Walter R. Jacobs, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of African American and African Studies

William O. Beeman, Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology

Eric D. Weitz, distinguished McKnight University Professor and Chair of History and Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts

Jean Obrien, Associate Professor and Interim Chair, American Indian Studies

John Archer, Professor and Chair, Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature and Scholar of the College

Albert R. Tims, Professor and Director, School of Journalism and Mass Communications

George A. Sheets, Professor and Chair, Department of Classics and Near Eastern Studies

Charlotte Melin, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch

Edén E. Torres, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Chicano Studies

Support Letter from State Senator, Sandra Pappas

August 29, 2007

I write this letter today in support of the 3,500 clerical, health care, and technical employees at the University of Minnesota who are asking for a reasonable cost of living increase. This year the legislature increased the University's budget by 12%. Although the Legislature did not specify that these funds were, in part, to be used for salary increases, the appropriation is such that the employees who support the University' work should rightfully benefit from the increase.

It is crucial to the success of the University to maintain and attract quality employees by providing a competitive wage. It is a disappointing fact that employees who are hired today make less (in real wages) than an employee who started five years ago. Not only is this wage increase important now, but it is also important to future living wage jobs at the University.

It is time to be fair; it is time to support those who have long supported this great University.

Respectfully,

Sandra Pappas
State Senator

Support from Dept. of Communication Studies Committee of Graduate Students

Department of Communication Studies
Fall 2007 Graduate Student Meeting

Resolution Regarding the Formation of a Strike Solidarity Committee of Graduate Students in the Department of Communication Studies

Whereas: AFSCME clerical, technical, and healthcare union locals voted to strike the first day of the 2007 fall semester if the University of Minnesota Administration refuses to make reasonable negotiation with their collective requests for better wages; and,

Whereas: The strike will affect approximately 3,500 workers at the University of Minnesota including many of whom contribute to the overall function of university business; and,

Whereas: As graduate student-workers in the Department of Communication studies, we stand in solidarity with all workers at this university; and,

Whereas: We believe that in order to be a top research institution, economic progress must apply to all workers and not just President Bruininks and top-level administration officials;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

Section 1: The Graduate Students in the Department of Communication Studies will form a Strike Solidarity Committee (SSC).

Section 2: The function of the Committee will be (A) to provide and disseminate information to the Department of Communication Studies graduate students regarding strike support, (B) make recommendations to the Department regarding strike support, and (C) generally to act in solidarity with workers affected by the strike as becomes necessary.

Section 3: Committee membership will be open to all graduate students in the Department of Communication Studies.

Section 4: Copies of this resolution will be sent to:
President Bruininks, AFSCME Strike Committee, GAPSA, COGS, Department Chair of Communication Studies Ed Schiappa, Director of Graduate Studies Kirt Wilson; the Commies Listserve; the Comm-Grad listserve; The Minnesota Daily; and any other bodies as deemed appropriate by the committee.

Submitted: August 27, 2007
Approved by majority: August 27, 2007.

To: [email protected]
Subject: University of MN Strike...
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007

Dear Sen. Pogemiller,

Having met you, your wife & daughter at our local coffee shop in the past, I feel you are an open person with good goals at heart and I have supported you with my vote. I am writing to you today as an University Union Worker because I am disheartened by the University's attempts to mislead the people of Minnesota with their PR against the union.

They claim they have no money to give their workers, even though it was the AFSCME union members who went to our Legislature and made a case for the University to receive monies with the understanding that it was to go towards the front-line workers, many of whom are union workers.

They not only distort their numbers by carefully crafting their wording to make it sound like they are offering 8.5% increases each year of our new contracts. One, this is combining a wage of living increase with a "step" increment (which not all members get and which only helps raise the level of compensation towards the actual salary that the University sees as the actual "value of the job"). In reality, our steps were never considered to be a cost of living increase.

Furthermore, even if you do merge the steps with the annual increase, what the University actually offered the unions was a 2.25% annual for technical and clerical with 2% steps and a 2.5% annual increase with about the same in steps for medical per year.

That means we, even with their combined numbers, still are only getting a 4-4.75% increase on our paychecks per year... NOT 8.5% like the University is making it seem. Now parse that back out and do not include the steps, which are in lieu of bonuses or merit pay that doesn't count towards standard of living, we are back to only a 2.25% increase PER year.

If you consider the rise in healthcare, food and gas prices, and the lack of increases over the past 4 years by the University, means that we are still BELOW the cost of inflation and the cost of living! They need to catch us up and give us a fair wage!

Don't you, as a senator, question why the Legislature gave the University of MN more money if it wasn't going to help its workers? Don't you feel used? As a taxpaying citizen and voter, knowing that you gave them money makes me feel used and abused. Please help put pressure on the University to give real people, real raises!

One final thought. How is it that the University has money to do an advertising campaign for their football team (I heard one of their ads on Sunday), but no money available to give higher wages to their workers? I've worked in advertising, I know what kind of money has to be spent for radio ads, it is appalling that I have to hear advertising for a football time that has already started the year with legal issues and know that I'll be standing on a picket line come Sept. 5!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Torkelson
Minneapolis, MN

Subject: Communication Studies Graduate Students Declare Strike Support
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007

Dear President Bruininks, Vice President Carol Carrier, and the Minnesota Daily,

During our fall semester orientation meetings, graduate students in the Department of Communication Studies voted to adopt the resolution declaring solidarity with AFSCME clerical, technical, and healthcare workers who may be affected by the impending strike. The graduate students in our department have also voted to send you the following statement:

After reviewing all of the information we have decided that as graduate students in the Department of Communication Studies, we stand in solidarity with all workers at the University of Minnesota. We believe that in order to be a top research institution economic progress must apply to all workers and not just President Bruininks and top-level administration officials.

We urge the university to avert the strike by meeting the reasonable terms proposed by the union.

Respectfully Submitted By,

Matthew May
Department of Communication Studies
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

U of M AFSCME Member - Steve's Story

Steve a member of AFSCME explains why he supports rejecting the University Administrations offer denying AFSCME workers real economic progress and voting to strike.

Letters to U Admin in Support of AFSCME Members

Subject: Real money to the table
To: [email protected]

Dear President Bruinicks,

As a member of the U community, I am writing to encourage you to go back to the bargaining table with AFSCME with wages that befit a first class university. During these days of mortgage crises and home defaults, decent jobs with living wages for workers are more important than ever. In offering basic wage increases to workers that fail to meet estimated inflation, the U sends a disturbing message. Do you really support an economy based on predatory lending and credit-based spending for basic goods? Do you want a public university that contributes to and reflects the growing gulf between rich and poor?

I hope that your actions over these next few critical days prove that you don't.

Sincerely,
Marion Traub-Werner
PhD Candidate, MacArthur Scholar
Department of Geography
University of Minnesota

Subject: Possible strike at the U
To: [email protected]

Hold on to your hats. Don't expect students to complain about the strike. If they complain, you are feeding them the wrong information. Give your workers what they deserve and everyone will walk away happy.  If not--watch your libraries in particular fall apart while their most important components are out picketing for a living wage.

- Alexandra Riley, (a student library worker with her head on straight)

Subject: Please support economic justice at the U of M!

Dear Jim and Patricia:

I'm an academic administrative (non-union) employee at the U of M.

The 3500 U employees who are members of AFSCME have been presented with terrible contract offers from the University and will vote this week on whether to reject and strike.

Over the past several years, the employees in these unions, who are mostly women and include some of the lowest paid employees at the U, have seen their real wages decline as inflation has eaten through their minuscule cost of living increases and into their standard of living. Some of my clerical colleagues have taken second jobs since their wages from the U no longer cover their bills. The University's contract offer (2.25% increase to most of the locals, 2.5% to one local) will not come close to keeping up with inflation, let alone make up for any of the ground that has been lost. (If you've ever worked in a low-paying job, I'm sure you know how useless 2.25% of next-to-nothing is!)

To add insult to injury, the U has tried to imply that the small step increases (2% a year, I believe) which reward employees for skills and expertise that they gain over years of experience and provide incentive for experienced workers to stay, are part of a more generous cost of living increase.

I am writing to ask you to let President Bruininks know that the State of Minnesota expects the U to be a responsible employer, and that state support for the recent U of M salary supplement was NOT intended to go disproportionately to the highest-paid employees, at the expense of the lowest-paid.

I believe there is still time to convince the U to do better and avoid a strike; the well-being of many people in our community depends upon it.

Thank you for your support.

Sally Lieberman, Ph.D.
Associate Director for National & International Scholarships
c/o Honors-CLA
20 Nicholson Hall
216 Pillsbury Drive SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Subject: Re: Everyone Loses During a Strike

Dear Ms. Dion,

We received a very similar email yesterday from Carol Carrier. I note that you omitted the paragraph that asserts that "the average AFSCME employee makes $35,444 per year or $17.04 per hour." I assume this must be because you know that's not true and didn't want to insult our intelligence by recycling that lie, since our bargaining unit members know how much they make.

The fact is, the "University of Minnesota general fund operating appropriations (excluding the Mayo Partnership funds) were increased by $151,626,000 for the biennium." Your operating budget is $1,497,559,929. Each 1% salary increase for our bargaining unit members costs the approximately $1 million. We can see in the President's recommended budget, which is available in its entirety at http://www.budget.umn.edu/bud08/BOR_Ops-Budget-FY08_Materials-rev.pdf, that millions of dollars are set aside to "recruit, retain and support world class faculty and staff." (See page 13 of the report.) Apparently we are not included in that plan.

No one will get a 4.25% annual wage increase under the University's proposal. You all need to drop that argument. We can do arithmetic and we know that our step increases are prorated depending on our anniversary date. Our step increases do not cost the University anything and never have been claimed to be a cost item until 4 years ago when you began your campaign to eliminate step increases altogether and move to merit pay. We know the turnover rate in the clerical union alone is close to 40%, so in any given year there are far more that 6% of our member who don't receive a step increase.

Our health insurance premiums are going up an average of just over 9% if we are in the base plan or Health Partners. Inflation is projected at an annual rate of 3.5% for the next two years. The Consumer Price Index figures routinely exclude "volatile" sectors such as food and energy. Unfortunately, we cannot exclude these items in our budgets.

I don't agree that "no one won" after the strike of clerical workers in 2003. We may have lost 11 days of pay, but we gained respect for ourselves and confidence in our capacity to stand together. We gained the unity of all of our AFSCME locals who now sit together at one bargaining table and will take action together.

What we have left to win is the University central administration's respect for us, our work, and our union. We have been asking for that since day 1. The ball is in your court.

Sincerely,

Sandi Sherman
AFSCME Local 3800