For more than seven months the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) has been attempting to negotiate a new three-year contract with Local 363. Since May of this year, the Bureau of Mediation Services (BMS) has assisted the MPRB and Local 363 in confidential mediation. The MPRB is seeking contracts with Local 363 regular full-time and seasonal employee units that provide competitive wages and fair standards that create efficient and productive working conditions for members of Local 363, as it has with all of its employees and other unions. This document is intended to address some of the frequently asked questions the MPRB has received about why negotiations continue. Additional strike details are available at www.minneapolisparks.org/363strike.
Q: What is the wage increase being offered by the MPRB?
The MPRB’s July 16 offer to Local 363 leadership includes a proposed 10.25% raise over three years (2024-2026), a $1.75 wage adjustment spread out over two years (2025 and 2026) for 13 job titles, and contract language changes. For Local 363 positions, the MPRB offer actually represents a wage growth of up to 20.4% with an average wage increase of 16.2% over the three years based on the proposed 10.25% wage increase and wage adjustments. The MPRB proposal translates into a $5 an hour raise, or a $10,000 annual per member increase for many employees.
At the end of mediation at the BMS on Tuesday, July 16, the MPRB and Local 363 were $1.4 million apart on the total three-year wage package.
The MPRB and Local 363 went back to mediation all day on Friday, July 19. While the MPRB continued to make offers on remaining issues from its July 16 offer, no contract agreement was reached and the contract remains unsettled. On Friday July 19, Local 363 held a vote at Minnehaha Falls Regional Park from 5-6 pm on the MPRB’s July 16 offer. News media reported that the MPRB’s contract offer failed by a 91% vote and also reported that less than 100 of the 200 members of Local 363’s regular unit participated in the vote. The MPRB understands that no vote was taken on the Seasonal employee 363 contract.
Q: What are the unresolved contract issues?
As of July 19, there is no definitive wage agreement and there remain four unresolved contract issues that need clarity to create better and more efficient and productive working conditions for the park system. The unresolved non-wage issues are: 1) the number of union stewards the MPRB must pay to attend to union matters; 2) what and how the detailing or assignment of staff is accomplished; 3) the period of initial employment probation; and 4) the requirement for the completion of a satisfactory job evaluation for an employee to receive a step increase. The MPRB is seeking to have the Local 363 Contract for regular full-time employees be consistent with its other labor agreements, with the City of Minneapolis labor agreements, with Civil Service Rules and with laws.
Union Stewards: The MPRB is trying to clarify the number of union stewards and the number of stewards the MPRB will pay to do union work on MPRB work time. The MPRB’s July 16 offer allows up to 5% of members to serve as stewards and for two union stewards to be paid by the MPRB to do union work on MPRB time.
Detailing Foreman and Crewleader: The MPRB’s language change around detail opportunities helps to address feedback it has heard from staff about schedule changes. The MPRB believes a modification to this section of the contract improves the workflow and communication of the workforce when a supervisor is unable to come to work, whether planned or unexpectedly. MPRB’s language allows more predictable scheduling, supports supervisory skill growth, and ensures supervision is provided by individuals with experience in their roles at the MPRB.
Forestry, which has 51 Local 363 employees who are eligible for detail opportunities, is looking to align detailing with current practice. Forestry will detail employees when a vacancy occurs due to an approved leave.
Asset Management has a workforce that works two shifts covering seven days a week and has 124 regular full-time Local 363 employees who are eligible for detail opportunities. The language changes align staff schedules with available opportunities, in a way that is more planned and predictable. One of MPRB’s goals is to create standards around work processes, and the last-minute changes in work schedules creates uncertainty for work plans and communication with staff. The language changes would benefit 363 employees and the organization in the following ways:
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- There would no longer be the need to manage last minute schedule changes for staff to fill detail opportunities. Local 363 employees would not need to adjust their schedules to accept opportunities at the last minute.
- Aligning detail opportunities with staff schedules allows for a person to more successfully experience/practice supervision by continuing their work in a shift with familiar standards and work processes. As an example, work done Monday through Friday from 6am to 2:30pm is different than the work done Wednesday through Sunday from 1pm to 9:30pm. Additionally, the expired contract allows a person newly hired to be immediately eligible to be detailed into supervisory positions when they are still learning their new role in the organization.
- The alignment also avoids negatively impacting operations by taking an employee out of a shift and creating a scheduling gap.
- The alignment removes the need to manage schedule changes for staff that often result in working at least one weekend with only one day off.
Probation: The MPRB offer aligns the probation period for newly hired full-time Local 363 employees to be 12 months to match the 12-month probation period for all other full-time, civil service positions at the MPRB. Civil service rules changed from a six month to a one-year probation for new employees in 2015. Local 363 is the only collective bargaining agreement that currently has a six-month probation period. Regular full-time 363 members are civil service employees.
Step Increases: The MPRB’s offer to Local 363 park employees includes language for step increases that is the same or similar to the contract approved earlier this year by the City of Minneapolis for Local 363 city workers. The MPRB has an established system-wide annual performance review process that is used for all other MPRB employees who receive annual step increases; step increases for such employees may be withheld or delayed in cases where the employee’s job performance has been less than satisfactory. The MPRB has more than 630 full-time staff, of which the majority are represented by one of nine unions.
Q: Is the MPRB committed to settling the strike?
The MPRB is committed to bargaining in good faith, settling the strike, and providing wages and contract language that is fair, equitable, and sustainable. The MPRB’s approach in contract negotiations with all of its unions is to review current and expiring contract language to identify changes in civil service and laws, identify areas of the contract that have been the sources of grievances, and explore operational issues with managers. The MPRB reviews budgets, analyzes current wages, and prioritizes resolving contract language before setting wages.
Local 363 Leadership has repeatedly stated the MPRB has “walked away from” or “walked out of” negotiations. This is not true. During mediated negotiations since July 1, the BMS releases both sides and the end of negotiations. Park officials have only left negotiations after being released by BMS. On July 2, after 11 hours of negotiations, BMS released the MPRB and 363 at 12:15 am after Local 363’s contract expired. More recently, on July 16 and July 19, after a full day of negotiating, the BMS came in and released both the MPRB and Local 363 representatives.
Q: How many Local 363 union members voted on July 19?
The MPRB does not know how many Local 363 members voted from 5-6 pm at Minnehaha Park on Friday, July 19, while picketing and an art fair was underway; however, the Star Tribune has reported that “just under half of the union’s nearly 200 full-time, dues-paying members turned out for the vote.”
Q: How many Local 363 union members have been working during the strike?
As of Monday, July 22 the MPRB counts 59.1% of 363 members who are reporting to work. These numbers include full-time and seasonal Local 363 members.
Q: How many trees from the July 14 storm have been cleaned up?
Of the 588 tree-related calls the MPRB received from Sunday, July 14, forestry crews have responded to 584 service requests with four in parks that crews need to follow up on. Last week forestry crews focused on tree and limb removals for safety. Starting Saturday, July 21, crews focused on pile pickup of limbs and debris and removal of large trees that were down in parks. The majority of cleanup has been completed. The July 14 storm was very similar to other storms in the past two years that also happened over a weekend and took more than a week to clean up, even with a full crew.
Q: How many employees work for the MPRB?
The MPRB’s 2024 budget includes 632 full-time employees and 1,224 seasonal and temporary employees (220 regular full-time employees and 100 seasonal employees are covered by the Local 363 contracts). There are more than 100 position titles in 14 departments. Staff collectively serve the community and the estimated 32 million visits made to the park system each year.