Voices in the Workplace:

The Economics of Working at the University of Minnesota

In the past two years employees at the University of Minnesota have experienced rapidly rising health care costs (employees pay an increasingly larger share of insurance premiums, and higher out-of-pocket costs for doctor’s visits and prescription medicine). Bargaining Unit employees’ hourly wages were frozen for a year, and small pay increases in 2004 did not mitigate the additional health care increases.

In January 2005, union represented employee groups sent an economic survey to their memberships. Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Teamsters responded and clearly described difficult budget realities. Voices in the Workplace shares workers' responses to the survey and tells the stories of the economic reality for many workers at the U of M. It was put together by University Unions United, a coalition of unions at the U.

Download Survey Results: "Voices in the Workplace"

The booklet “Voices in the Workplace: the economics of working at the University of Minnesota” is sponsored by University Unions United-a coalition of U of M unions. This document is a compilation of quotations derived from worker responses to a four-question personal economic survey conducted in January 2005.

If you have not yet completed a survey, we would still like to hear from you, download the survey form here and return it to us by or US mail, or you can contact us by phone (address and phone on panel to the right).

Economics Survey 2005

Below are the survey responses from members of Local 3937 in their entirety (names of participants have been removed). While many of these voices are included in the booklet, we want to give space for all those that spoke about their financial realities to be heard.