GRAND RAPIDS — The University of Minnesota service workers' impending strike has made headlines over the past few weeks.
But some Grand Rapids residents may have been surprised to see a picket line when the strike began Tuesday, Sept. 9.
Six members of Teamsters Local 320 picketed alongside Highway 169. They started at 4 a.m. in a chilly drizzle and said they were glad to enjoy the fall sun by the afternoon.
The workers do maintenance, grounds and agricultural work at the U’s North Central Research and Outreach Center, which shares a campus with Minnesota North College-Itasca.
The six are just a small part of the open-ended strike. Some 1,400 workers across at least eight campuses, including Crookston and Duluth, are asking for fair wages and other protections. The university said the demands are "unrealistic in today’s financial landscape.”
The union said over 80% of workers rejected the university’s last offer Friday.
Billy O’Brien has been a maintenance and operations mechanic for three years and has worked at NCROC for 10 years.
He said they’re striking for equal pay and standardized contracts to increase future negotiating leverage. But the NCROC workers are also fighting for college campus workers who haven’t gotten the treatment he said they deserve.
“We were close to negotiating a good contract, I felt, there’s just a little bit more that some of the people feel that the university can give, and we’re going to try and get that," O'Brien said.
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