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Minneapolis park workers give 10-day strike notice

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Hundreds of Minneapolis park employees could walk off the job as soon as Nov. 8, saying negotiations have broken down over wages and worker protections.

“We have exhausted all options to avoid taking this action,” said AJ Lange of the city employees’ union LIUNA Local 363 on Friday. “In the midst of a pandemic and civil unrest, we continue to work despite being understaffed and overworked.”

The union’s 10-day strike notice comes after seven months of contract talks with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB). More than 200 people who do the manual labor that maintains the Park Board’s buildings and grounds — including those who trim trees, flood ice rinks and operate pools — have been working without a contract since Dec. 31.

“The MPRB has been negotiating in good faith since March 21, 2022, with Local 363 representatives for a three-year contract for park employees that is competitive, fair and equitable,” Park Board spokesperson Dawn Sommers said in a statement Friday. “Should a strike occur, the MPRB will prioritize and adjust maintenance services to minimize impacts to park visitors.”

Workers want wage increases that keep pace with the rate of inflation, which was 8.2% as of Sept. 30. The Park Board’s last offer of a 2.25% wage increase for 2022, 2.5% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2024 fell short, Lange said.

About 75% of union members voted down that proposal in September, authorizing the union to call a strike. Negotiations since then have failed to bridge the gap.

“We have lost confidence in MPRB’s negotiation team because they are disrespectful, hostile and don’t take us seriously,” Lange said.

The union leader said Park Board negotiators have proposed restricting certain worker benefits, such as the longstanding “bid system” that gives Parkkeepers some choice in where and when they work based on seniority, Lange said. The Park Board also suggested creating a separate wage tier for those hired after this year. New employees would need a satisfactory work performance to receive an annual scheduled wage increase.

The union is concerned that if a second wage tier is created for new hires, they might be paid substantially less than current employees — which could drive a wedge between union members.

The Park Board’s offer includes eight additional holiday hours on top of existing 12 holiday days, weekend and hazard premium pay for certain workers and COVID-19 pay of $1,000, said Sommers’ statement.

“MPRB leadership believes their employee wages and benefits are fair and competitive throughout the organization,” she said.

Minneapolis parkkeepers earn $56,000 on average — arborists $62,000, gardeners $63,000, crew leaders $74,000 and foremen $85,000.

From 2012 to 2021, inflation rose 21.5% and the Local 363 park workers received wage increases totaling 22.56%, according to the Park Board. In contrast, the union’s city employees received wage increases totaling 19.4%.

Another round of negotiations is slated for Nov. 2. If the Park Board and union fail to reach an agreement, park workers are tentatively scheduled to strike at 5 a.m. on Nov. 8.

Correction:
A previous version of this story misstated the Park Board’s proposal on the probation period for new hires.



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Former Duluth East hockey coach Mike Randolph violated employee conduct policies

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Not all of the interviews were negative; a fair amount of players and parents reported positive experiences with Randolph, some saying they never witnessed him belittling players.

“To me, he was fabulous,” one parent said, noting their child “blossomed” under Randolph.

Terch wrote he was not able to substantiate an allegation that Randolph received payments from the East End Hockey Boosters, although he did find “unusual financial management practices” by the booster club, including a misrepresentation to parents about the use of at least some of what they paid, a commingling of funds between events and “unorthodox” accounting practices. Several parents said they felt they had overpaid many times without explanation. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension began investigating the former East hockey booster club in 2023 for alleged embezzlement. The status of that case is unknown.

In response to the report’s release, Duluth Public Schools Superintendent John Magas said in a statement that he can’t discuss personnel matters, but the district takes all reports from students and families “very seriously.”

“Our primary goal is to ensure that students have the best possible experiences, both in the classroom and in extracurricular activities,” he said. “We are committed to thoroughly investigating any concerns brought to our attention and taking appropriate action” to maintain safe and positive learning environments.

St. Thomas Academy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.



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How Trump tariffs would shock U.S., world economies

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Gas prices would increase by as much as 75 cents per gallon in the Midwest, where most refined products come from Canada, according to Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy. Overall, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said Trump’s tariffs would cost the typical household $2,600 per year; the Yale Budget Lab said in an estimate released Wednesday that the annual cost could be as high as $7,600 for a typical household. As a share of their income, the poorest Americans would pay 6 percent more with 20 percent tariffs, compared with 1.4 percent more for the richest 1 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank.

“We’re not talking about caviar — these are things that people have to buy. They’re essentials,” said Neil Saunders, a managing director at the analytics company GlobalData.

Economists say it would take several painful years for alternative domestic producers to emerge for many goods. For instance, almost all shoes and 90 percent of tomatoes sold in the country are imported, according to the Peterson Institute. And the United States does not even have the climate necessary to produce many food items – such as coffee, bananas, avocados, to say nothing of Chilean sea bass – at the necessary scale to meet domestic demand, said Joseph Politano, an economic analyst who has written on the subject on his Substack.

Trump’s tariffs would also reverberate through Wall Street and global markets, inviting turmoil that would affect investors and companies worldwide. Those effects would probably be felt quickly.

During Trump’s first term, stocks fell on nine of 11 days in 2018 and 2019 that the United States or China announced new tariffs, according to a study this year by economists with the Federal Reserve and Columbia University. Comprehensive tariffs would cause a swift one-time jump in prices before reducing economic growth about six months later, according to economist David Page, head of macro research for AXA Investment Managers in London.

Many analysts are hopeful that a stock market panic would dissuade or prevent Trump from carrying out his plans. The investment bank UBS projected that a 10 percent universal tariff could lead to a 10 percent contraction in the stock market. U.S. multinationals are heavily dependent on foreign subsidiaries, and retailers, auto manufacturers and other industrial sectors would be hit the hardest, according to UBS. Chris McNally, an analyst at Evercore, said Trump’s 10 percent tariff plan could cause a more than 20 percent decline in General Motors’ earnings, with slightly smaller declines for Ford and Stellantis.



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On the Wisconsin-Iowa border, the Mississippi River is eroding sacred Indigenous mounds

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Bear and other members of her tribe are serving as consultants on the project, as is William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, and his tribe. They also lead teams of volunteers to help care for the mounds, which includes removing invasive European plants and replacing them with native plants that reduce soil erosion.

Some are skeptical of this manmade solution to a manmade problem. There are some tribal partners who’ve expressed that the river should be allowed to keep flowing as it wants to, Oberreuter said. Snow also acknowledged that people have been hesitant about making such a change to the natural bank.

But, she pointed out, “The bank is (already) no longer what it was.”

When the berm is complete, Snow said, there’ll be a trail atop it that visitors can walk. That may help protect the mounds better than the current way to see them, which is to walk among them, she said.

The Sny Magill Unit has been part of Effigy Mounds National Monument since 1962, Snow said, but it’s not advertised like the rest of the park. That’s in part because there are no staff stationed there to properly guide people through the mounds. But if people visit respectfully, she believes it’s one of the best places to take in the mounds because it’s on a flat, walkable surface, unlike the rest of the park, which is on a blufftop.



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